


Grave Circumstances

by MistyBeethoven



Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [15]
Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Assassins & Hitmen, Attraction, Avoidant Personality Disorder, BBW, Betrayal, Cemetery, Continental Hotel (John Wick), Crushes, Death, Demisexuality, Donuts, Drama, F/M, Favors, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Helicopters, Hiding, Hospitals, Hostage Situations, Kidnapping, Loss of Virginity, Love Stories, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Overweight, Plans, Present Tense, Presumed Dead, Reunions, Roommates, Running, Running Away, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Sex, Shyness, Tombstones, Virginity, graves, tasks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22122040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: Excommunicado assassin John Wick asks me to care for his dead wife Helen's grave for him as he continues trying to escape from the High Table. Left with the task, I soon become obsessed with the idea that if I keep a good enough watch over the woman's final resting place, John will survive against impossible odds and will someday be free to return to it.And also to me if he wants to.However, when the High Table learns of the former assassin's request and newfound interest in me, my life is placed in danger and it is up to John Wick to save his overweight damsel in distress.
Relationships: Aurelio (John Wick) & Me, Bowery King & Earl (John Wick), Charon & John Wick, Charon & Winston (John Wick), Charon (John Wick) & Me, Helen Wick/Jimmy, Helen Wick/John Wick, Jimmy (John Wick) & Me, John Wick & Winston, John Wick/Me, Winston (John Wick) & Me
Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589944
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	1. Favor

**Author's Note:**

> This is my John Wick entry to this series. I think, I'm nervous about it the most so far since I've written quite a few John Wick fics previously.
> 
> So far I've written a fic in this series for each of these Keanu Reeves films:
> 
> Point Break  
> Speed  
> River's Edge  
> Swedish Dicks (I love Tex Johnson)  
> Constantine  
> My Own Private Idaho  
> Something's Gotta Give (Julian finally received a happy ending)  
> A Scanner Darkly (soft spot for Bob Arctor)  
> Bill & Ted (I love Ted Logan)  
> Freaked! (having so much fun with this one that I turned it into a crude series)
> 
> So many left to go and it should be fun coming up with different stories. I am trying to feature actual plots for these. I think The Dream from The Bad Batch will be coming up soon along with Dr. William Beckham from To the Bone and Danceny from Dangerous Liaisons. Plus updates for the Constantine and My Own Private Idaho ones.
> 
> Once again I am a donut shop girl here. Why this occupation keeps recurring, I don't know since I have never worked in a Donut Shop in my life. It's just odd continuity by now. I think it was the fact that the previous fics with it featured Johnny Utah and Jack Traven, two police officers of sorts. Donuts and policemen stereotypically go hand in hand. So donuts it is. Still tempted to eat them all. Which may come in handy for my Dr. Beckham story. :/

"I need you to do something for me," John Wick asks one morning as he sits at my table, staring at me with that intense stare that is as common to his expression as ploughed in driveways are to Canadians in the wintertime. 

I have no idea what he is going to ask of me. With a man like the Baba Yaga you can never be too sure.

* * *

When he came into the donut store where I worked a few nights back, he had been the only customer. It was a slow night and the bright florescent lights must have looked so bright and yellow against the dark and drab New York City sky that, at first, I thought he had found his way inside the shop like a moth being led to the light from a flame.

Then I had noticed that there was about a third of a dozen men following him with the obvious desire to shorten his life and he had probably just been looking for some empty place to fight them.

I've always been a bit of a nobody so, I guess, the shop was the closest thing he could find.

"Get down!" he had hissed at me and I had done what he had ordered not so much because I was scared of the other assassins but because I was afraid of this man I didn't yet know was John Wick.

I didn't need to know of his reputation to understand that he was dangerous. I watched from behind the store counter as this stranger took on four men like he could foretell their every single move and they were nothing more than children at play in the schoolyard at recess. Only, this time, the four other children ended up dead. And their killer looked beaten, bloody and very tired by the end of it.

I felt sorry enough for the stranger to do something stupid.

"You want to come home with me; it's almost closing time?" I had asked. "Nothing sexual; you just look tired and homeless."

He furrowed his blood splattered brow and looked at me like I was the inpatient at an insane asylum and not just a donut girl. "Don't you know who I am?" he asked.

I shook my head from side to side. "No."

The man had looked at the floor littered with his victims. He then touched the blood that was slowly trickling down his right cheek. Staring at it, he turned to me and said, "Yeah. Okay."

* * *

If I had known who he was John Wick would have likely never have let me take him home. He would have seen that as _far_ too dangerous for me. But a woman that had never heard of the Baba Yaga was likely so removed from the world of the High Table, the assassin had reasoned, that it was a safe bet I was so beneath their radar of importance my company and apartment would be safe. I was a nobody but sometimes being that was better than being a somebody. That was what John Wick was, after all. On the way home, however, he kept looking behind himself just to be sure we weren't being followed. Luckily I lived close by so the distance was a short and relatively safe one to travel.

At my dwelling, not very impressive at all, I forced him to sit down while I attended to his cuts and wounds. I enjoyed washing off his face and finding a surprisingly handsome man underneath the grime, dirt and blood. He has nice brown eyes, facial hair stuck between stubble and a beard and long dark hair. 

"Why hello there," I said with a little wave. "Nice to finally see you."

He once again looked at me like my sanity should be tested.

Looking around the space, he took in my array of Stephen King novels mixed with Victoria Holts and children's novels such as "An Old Fashioned Girl."

I realized that he was used to sizing people up as part of his job and he was still having difficulty figuring out the woman whom had taken him home. He was also just realizing that I only had one bed and no sofa or cot.

"You can sleep in the bed with me," I told him. "I know two people sharing a bed doesn't need to be _sexual_. From about twelve to sixteen I had to share a bed with my mother when my parents divorced and my sister, mom and myself moved in with my grandpa. It was cramped and we were poor. I'm demisexual too so i wouldn't think about making love to you unless i knew and cared about you first."

"You're not worried about me?" he inquired incredulously.

"Should I be?" I asked suspiciously.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm a widower and I love my wife still too much."

"Good," I said. "Everything should be fine then."

I didn't add that I also thought he would never try anything because of my weight. I'm a very round woman. I was a round girl as well. In fact, I've never really been thin besides in a childhood too early to properly remember. While I'd like to believe somebody like the stranger would be attracted to me enough to make a pass at me as we shared the same bed (as warped as that sounds) I don't hold much faith in it.

Usually I'm painfully shy, also, but I liked this silent and moping man. And I felt safe with him. It's hard not to feel safe with a man you just witnessed take down four skilled killers as easily as if he were playing a game of pinball.

I left to get changed into my nightie, leaving my guest alone to do whatever he did before going to bed.

When I returned I found out that that consisted of pretty well nothing. He was lying in the bed still wearing his dirty suit and tie. The only thing that he'd taken off was his shoes; they sat by his side of the bed as if he expected to need to get into them in a hurry.

The man wasn't used to sleeping next to somebody again, I could tell. We lay back to back for a while but were both having trouble. Eventually we both flipped at the same time and faced one another.

"Hi again," I stated.

"Hi," he grumbled.

"What's your name?"

"John Wick."

"I'm Erin."

"Erin, are you usually this... _giddy_?"

"No, I'm actually quite shy. I'm just hysterical. I get that way when I'm serious or sad even sometimes. I've never seen four people die right in front of me before," I confessed.

He looked genuinely remorseful about this. "I'm sorry. They were going to kill me."

"I know," I tried to reassure him. "Care to tell me why?"

"If I do you may wind up dead."

"If you don't the same thing might happen."

We stared at one another as we lay on our sides, my long wavy brown hair spilling across the pillow under my head and on to his, the traffic outside making its usual noises: a siren crying out loudly amidst its peers for more attention and a few honks of some horns, sounding like they belonged to a Herb Alpert song that always made me laugh.

John Wick sighed and started his tale while I lay there and listened. It made for quite the bedtime story and I felt horrible for the man and all he had been through. When he had finished, I simply touched his cheek and told him he'd be safe with me: the only thing I knew of any High Table was that it sounded like it would go well with a High Chair.

He smiled at that.

"You get some sleep," I instructed.

"Thanks Erin," he had muttered and then quickly did.

I guess, he had been that tired of running.

* * *

He stayed with me for about two weeks. We got to know each other pretty well. Too well sometimes. The apartment wasn't that big and with his big frame and my chubbiness we'd bump or brush into each other on the embarrassing occasion. I adopted my usual shyness pretty soon after that first night. Still I enjoyed having a man about the place. He was the first since my grandfather had died.

I also liked getting him new clothes or anything else he asked me to. Fixing him meals was fun and he seemed to appreciate a home cooked meal. He promised to pay me back but it didn't really matter; I had grown affectionately fond of my on-the-run assassin.

So much so, that I dreaded the day when he would leave me.

It happened soon enough as all things do. As you get older, you find vacations grow horribly short, holidays vanish painfully fast and another Birthday is always around the corner. That last one doesn't bother me as much as it does other people, though. I focus more on trying to be my name rather than the number that changes every year.

But fearing John would go away finally happened or will, at least, since he just told me he can't stay. I look down into my cup of coffee, which I always make very sweet and creamy because I like it that way. John likes his black and I think about how I'm going to mix making it for him. When I turn my head it is because I'm sure I am going to cry because I know when he leaves I won't know for certain if I'll ever see him again.

Or if he'll even be alive out there in this crazy, scary and wonderful world.

"Do you like working in that store?" he asks out of nowhere.

"Some days more than others. I just really want to be a published author one day."

It's nothing that I haven't told him before. He knows my dream about that and how it started after I abandoned the first one about being a vet. That one was forsaken after I realized I'd eventually have to cut open an animal to operate on the poor thing.

Wick looks at me in his stoic yet understanding way. He's like the ocean: You can never be sure what lies under its calm surface. It could be either something as sweet as a whale or as dangerous as a shark.

"I need you to do something for me," John Wick requests. "I worry about Helen's grave sometimes. I'll pay you to go and look after it."

My jaw should have made a clunking thud as it hit the table but, I guess, maybe I'm taller than I thought so it didn't reach.

The assassin scribbles something on the back of a piece of junk mail and hands it to me. I read it; it obviously it is the address of the cemetary where Helen Wick is resting and her plot.

"It will give you time to write," he adds further incentive as I remain silent and staring at the information.

Plots were important to writing but not necessarily this type of one.

Still, I want to do it. Knowing how much John Wick loved Helen, I am honored that he would give me this responsibility. Still the weight of it feels almost too heavy on my shoulders and I fear goofing up somehow. How one can goof up caring for a grave, I'm not sure but if he leaves it to me the possibility exists.

Further, I'm afraid that maybe this is my friend's way of admitting to himself that he may die sometime soon. I fear he may choose surrender instead of having to keep running and hiding. For the man who only struggles to keep living in order to remember his dead wife, the fate of her grave after his own death would be his primary concern.

"Okay," I agree.

"Good," Wick seals our pact.

"Do me a favor too please," I shyly add one condition. "Try to survive; I'm only promising to look after one grave...not two."

He nods solemnly. "Got it."

* * *

He spends one last night with me. He's wearing the T-shirt that I bought for him and the fleece bottoms. We talk for a bit as as become our custom, me speaking more often than he does. I want to tell him that I'll miss him. That he's the closest I've ever gotten to a man I wasn't related to. That I've never even been kissed and could he please, _maybe_ , just give me a little one before he goes? Instead I ramble on about silly things that matter to me: God, Sam Cooke, Stephen King novels before his accident and a hundred other little things.

I'm sure he's probably grateful when I finally fall asleep. It is his last assured sleep in a bed for a while anyway and he probably just wants to enjoy it in peace and quiet.

When I awake, it is still dark and John Wick is spooning with me. I feel his arms around my large middle and his bearded chin rests against where my neck meets my shoulder. I like the way my well-cushioned ass rests against his groin. I know he thinks that I'm Helen in the blind dark and in his peaceful slumber but I let him hold me because, for at least this one time, we can both find some comfort in a lie. I bring my chubby hands to his large ones, locked in front of my stomach, and clasp them tenderly.

The next time I awaken there are no arms wrapped around me and I am alone. I turn over in the bed and feel the now empty spot; it is still warm and there is a sheet of paper where John Wick was once lying.

_Don't Forget._

It simply imparts.

I won't, fearing if I did that there could be grave consequences.


	2. Introduction to a Tombstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I find Helen Wick's grave and something else as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am warning you right now this will probably be the most boring John Wick story ever written.

After I read John's note, I head in to work and immediately tell my boss that I have to quit for personal reasons. I don't go into much detail. Having heard John talk about the world of the High Table, it's difficult to know who and whom I shouldn't trust now. I find myself wondering how much I really know about anybody and what secrets they keep, not only locked behind closed doors, but inside of their always hidden mind too.

I probably should be upset that my boss acts like it doesn't matter one way or another if I go. But, at least, I don't have to feel bad about disappointing him. I also know that it would be expecting too much to expect tears. I wasn't a brain surgeon; saving people's lives wasn't my job nor was protecting the world. I served donuts. And while a donut shop brings a lot of happiness to people, it's the donuts that do that more than the person that hands the tasty treats to you and hands you your change after you have paid. 

So I filled in only one last day because my boss already had someone else lined up for the job and when I left I pretty well knew it would be unlikely I'd ever see the place again. To be honest, the donuts we served weren't all that great and if I ever returned to the heart of New York City I could find a far better place to buy a Maple Boston Cream.

I leave the city with little else but the clothes on my back and John Wick's note in my hand.

Oh, and enough cash to cover a taxi ride to the address written on that same note. Return fare, on the other hand, is nonexistent 

* * *

It's probably a stupid thing to do, I think to myself as I sit in the backseat of the taxi, watching the scenery and looking at the note in my hand written by a man that I care for. He gave me an address, a new job and a promise of being able to write but the assumed pay to be able to survive never was broached at all. Still here I am traveling out to a cemetary to visit Helen Wick's final resting place because I am in love with her husband. That I am doing such a foolish thing has probably driven this home to me more than anything else besides that little ache in my heart when I keep hoping I'll see John Wick again.

Maybe I am just lonely and mistaking that for love but I doubt it. I can be alone without being lonely and I was doing just fine by myself until John Wick showed up and started that little seed of affection inside of my heart for him. Even that seed never needed to become anything more than that though, I am aware. That the seed turned from a pleasant alstroemeria to a rose is probably due to the fact of who John is and who I am in return. He fit my heart and soul like a song you hear on the radio and instantly speaks to something inside of you.

That Wick hardly speaks at all was unimportant.

I think all this as I watch dirty buildings slowly be replaced by trees and arrive at the nice little suburbs where John and Helen Wick once lived until the woman's death from a disease that my houseguest never fully described to me. Love Story Disease I label it as. It's what separates true lovers and doesn't really require something to call it by. Especially in works of fiction. They had lived here until Helen had died and John's life had fallen apart after a puppy named Daisy's death. But he had been doomed far before that. John Wick had died the moment when the Doctor's had informed him of his wife's sickness. 

A man like John Wick is a pessimist at heart. You deal in death long enough and you know it will come calling for you sooner or later. Maybe people without conscience think they can escape. They place all their faith in a devil or gamble that he doesn't exist and so won't come a calling when their last breath is taken. John possessed a sense of belief in a God and retribution. Although he never said as much, I could tell he thought that what had happened to Helen was his fault in a way.

How do you punish a killer?

You take away the only thing he ever truly loved more than his own life.

That felt like justice to a man like John and was more easy to understand and accept than the sad truth that God makes _all_ people die eventually, the bad and good alike. Nobody is freed from that fate and it seems useless to wail over the cruelty of God over one death when you realize it is everybody's destiny sooner or later. The only sense and peace we can hope of is that He knows what He's doing and someday it will all make sense. 

But then again, Jardani Jovonovich was made to be an assassin and taught how to control _every_ aspect of that which surrounded him: from a gun to a knife to his own hands if needed. He _had_ to believe he had some say in his beloved Helen's life.To try to accept that he had no control over what mattered to him the _most_ would have driven him crazy.

Speaking of Helen, the taxi pulls up at the cemetary where she lies, not exactly waiting, and I am told the fare and expected to get out as soon as possible. I watch the cab turn around and head back to the city, feeling like the driver has robbed me which he has in a way: I gave him most of what I had on me.

John told me he would pay me for watching his wife's grave but he never exactly said how, I realize again. I ponder this fact and where I am supposed to stay as I try to find Helen's grave. If this is supposed to give me the opportunity to write, I am curious about how when I have fallen into a job where I won't be paid in a town where I have no place to stay in a community where the only person I would have known is an infamous ex assassin whom is currently fleeing for his life. It doesn't make any sense but neither did inviting a handsome stranger home with me when I had no intention of having sex with him even though we did sleep together.

The bag in my hand swings back and forth as my hand grasps the handle tightly. I weave in and out of the tombstones which have been erected to commemorate those whom have passed on. When I was a child and my mom would visit her mother's grave, my sister and I would look at the tombtones in the cemetery and study with interest the names carved on them. I would mentally make note of the markers which I found to be the most beautiful and wonder about the person that lay in the ground beneath them, most often for many years by the time a fat little girl pondered their lives.

I find Helen's grave soon enough. The tombstone is beautiful, nothing garish but rather something quiet and elegant. It is the sort of thing that a stoic man like John Wick would choose for the woman that had meant the world to him and had destroyed his own when she had too soon left it.

I see once again that she had died too young and my heart aches for both this woman and the man she had left behind. Two people who can truly love one another in this cold and ignorant place should be allowed to grow old together. They should die when their hair is gray and their eyesight is going along with their hearing. Even then, they should live until their hearts becomes too weak to take another beat.

"Hi Helen," I say with a small wave. "I'm Erin. John hired me to look after you."

She can't hear me, of course, but maybe my words will reach her on the wings of the stone angels that appear throughout the cemetery.

"He misses you. Can you ask God to help him out if you get the chance? He's tired of running and wants to come and visit you."

With this sentiment, I notice that somebody has visited already and left Helen flowers. I notice also in shock that they are blue roses. Well presumably white ones that have been dyed. In reality there are no such thing as roses of blue. Nature can't produce one and I told John Wick this once when I mentioned my own mother's death to him.

She had been dying in the palliative care unit in a nursing home. My sister and I had knelt on either side of her bed and I had asked her to look after the garden of blue roses I had asked God to make for me up there. On earth such things may be impossible but a wise man had once said that in Heaven all things were. So why the Hell not? I like to think of her up there tending them for me now. Walking amidst rows and rows of blue roses and patiently waiting for the day when she will see me again.

I now walk towards the flowers and more specifically the note accompanying them. Kneeling again as I had once knelt by my dying mother's side, I take the envelope and open it. It harbors a simple white card with yet another address written on it along with an unusual name:

Aurelio.


	3. Chop Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I meet with Aurelio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so continues the most boring entry in this series. Hey if you're looking for excitement or sex read the "The Bad Batch," "Freaked!" or "Toy Story 4" entries. :/

I don't have to walk to the address written on the card as I initially feared. Inside of the envelope there was a twenty dollar bill, enough to get another cab to take me there. Of course, it isn't the same one or driver as the taxi which brought me to the cemetery where Helen Wick is interred. That guy is already heading back to New York. On the drive to Aurelio's, whatever or whomever that may be, I suddenly feel very far away from home. It's not exactly that I had many ties there. Being Canadian, my family is all up north in Ontatio but I know that John is in New York presumably and I feel very far apart from him.

Unless he's off in Italy, Morocco again or some other distant Country that is. He's been so many places by now I know that he is tired of it. He told me once that the only place he wanted to be was by Helen's side and now that she's in the ground, I pray to God that he won't soon join her there also. If he is I'll bring him flowers, blue roses again to match the ones he left for me and now lie on the empty seat in the cab to my left.

The cab drops me off at a place that looks like a garage or warehouse of some sorts. I grab my bag and roses, pay the driver and cautiously walk inside of the building. My guess about the garage was correct, I can tell, as I intake the amount of cars and people busy at work. They are so busy, intact, that they don't seem to notice right away that there is a plump and anxious woman in their obviously illegal domain. Only after one man sees me does it start a chain reaction which finally leads to a large man with blonde dreadlocks coming my way.

"Get out of here lady!" is his first order, followed by a, "Who the Hell sent you?"

I don't dare tell him that it was John Wick because this _must_ be a High Table run organization (at least somewhere above or below the Table) and I fear hurting the excommunicado hitman. "Aurelio?" I manage to mutter past a tongue that doesn't want to work.

My voice is barely audible past the various power tools but when I shout the word out again, a man in his forties or fifties approaches. He seems to be of Hispanic descent and has dark hair and eyes. Those same eyes look at me in suspicion and subtle amusement. With my large size and apparently meek air I don't fit neatly inside of this unsavory world. This man can tell that easily but he still is wise enough to beware of Trojan horses and the evil they can hide within them.

"I'm Aurelio," the stranger states. "Why are you here?"

I don't know what to say to him. I once again can't mention John's name with the other man standing right to our side. Instead, all I can think of to do is hand him the card and say, "It's a matter of the _grave-est_ importance."

The trying to be clever wording gets to him as does the card itself. I watch in silence as his eyes widen. "I'll see you in a spare office," is all that he says and motions me to follow him.

I keep hoping he'll hand me the card back with his name and address because I want to keep it for John's sake but he never does. Once inside of the office he takes it over to a shredder and turns it into about close to fifty tiny pieces of paper. I feel the frown on my face that he eventually turns around and sees.

"So you're Erin, huh?" he asks me as he sits at a desk.

"Yes."

"So how's John?"

I wish I could answer that question as honestly and up to the minute as possible but all I can offer is his state from the other day. "He's fine. Tired of running. He stayed at my apartment for a bit; was able to rest. Then he was out of my life and running for his own again. As you know, he wants me to look after his wife's grave."

The worry arises that I shouldn't have mentioned the apartment incase John wants to return to it and hide out at some point. But by now my old landlord has probably rented it out and to do so would be foolish. Still, I worry about any little misstep that could cost John Wick his life. This Aurelio seems to care for John but so did Winston and look where that led to.

The Chop Shop operator takes in the information and just nods. "We're all worried about him. Everybody that loves him."

"Well why don't you do something about it?" I say angrily. "If you love him so much?"

Aurelio snickers. "Hey, there might be a lot of us but there is a lot more of them. And John made quite a few enemies and cut quite a few ties when he married Helen. Love is often conditional in our world."

I nod and walk foward to sit down in the chair in front of the desk. I'm suddenly very tired, also, remembering why I am here: to look after a much loved woman's grave.

"So what was she like? Helen." I ask Aurelio. I've heard so much from John but he was a little biased. Hearing an alternative take on her character from somebody that wasn't so close may give a more fair evaluation.

"She was an angel," the man replies.

I guess, John Wick's words on the subject had been right, after all. I curse my insecurity and jealousy which had been hoping that she would have had some flaw. It's hard to live up to an angel, after all.

"She was the sweetest and kindest woman on the planet," he continues, making it only worse. "Never said anything bad about anyone. Never made John feel guilty for what he had been. She was good and those are usually the people God takes first, in my experience."

"What did she look like?" I ask,realizing that her appearance hadn't ever really come up before with my houseguest and the picture in my head might be completely false.

"Light skin, long brown hair, like yours...well she looked an awful lot like Erin Reagan on 'Blue Bloods.'"

Well at least we had that name in common, I thought. That and the fact that we both loved John.

"So why was I supposed to see you?" I ask, snapping myself out of my thoughts.

Aurelio stands and goes to a file cabinet. I assume that he will open a drawer but that's too easy. He wiggles the damn thing over and grabs an envelope underneath it. Handing it to me, he instructs me not to open the thing until I arrive at my next scheduled stop: The Be Sea-ing You Bed and Breakfast.

"Nice name," I comment genuinely.

"Well I'd better get back to business. It will look suspicious if I don't. You leave first. Act like you're upset. Curse me under your breath or some shit. Hide the envelope in your bag," the mechanic says.

Knowing that the man has spent as much time on the matter as he feels safe to, I stand and head for the door.

"Hey Erin," Aurelio calls out to me before I go.

I turn to look at him.

"John must trust and care for you a lot to look after Helen's grave for him," he tells me. "She was his world."

I blush feeling like I have given my feelings away for the ex-assassin somehow. Was it my actions, my eyes, my breathing when I talked about him? It could have been anything. These people are taught to mark weaknesses and I guess there is no greater weakness than what a person loves.

"Thank you," I say but the words come out weakly too, little more than a whisper.

As I leave the room, I try to call the mechanic I honestly liked every dirty name I can think of under my breath but still loud enough for his workers to hear if they can manage to past the din of tools and their own ribald bantering.


	4. Be Sea-ing You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I check into the Be-Seaing You Bed and Breakfast and realize I don't like sleeping alone.
> 
> Or more accurately, I don't like sleeping without John Wick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I unexpectedly found a different detour for this boring little story. I'm still keeping my original intent but mixing it in with an eventual kidnap/hostage angle. This idea tickles me.
> 
> Even though I usually don't like being tickled for a very specific reason...
> 
> I pee. :/
> 
> There's your TMI for today.

The Be Sea-ing You Bed and Breakfast, situated by the sea and hence the title, obviously has been expecting to see me. But not because they want to. That much is obvious the moment I step into the place and the wizened up elderly man behind the counter sets his small gray eyes on me and starts cursing.

"Don't know who he thinks he is," the concierge complains as I walk up to the registration desk. "Oh _John Wick_ , that's the fuck who! Start calling a man 'Baba Yaga' long enough it goes to his head too much. Starts falling for his own hype, thinking he can step between a rainstorm of bullets, fall off of rooftops or call in any of the vast amount of markers he's accumulated throughout the years."

Knowing all about these from my discussions with the former assassin, I smile at the riled up little man who is grabbing a large book from off of a shelf behind him.

"I take it you are one of those?" I ask with a bemused grin.

"No," he says as he faces me again and in a tone suddenly so devoid of emotion my blood turns as cold as the ice in a glass of my excommunicado friend's favorite bourbon. "Certainly not. If anybody asks, _you_ were the one with the marker. That is what I'll claim and I'll cut your throat right here and now if you don't vow the same."

I nod, sure that my sincerity and terror is evident in my eyes.

"Good," the man says slamming the tome down on the counter and shoving it towards me.

He flips the book open to find the desired page which isn't too hard to do since a pen is wedged in between the spot he had been searching for. "Sign here!" he demands, once more back to his cantankerous self.

"I like the old fashioned book," I compliment while I scribble my name. "I get sick and tired of computers."

"Huh..." he spits. "High Table rules. I wanted to run the Continental over in Chicago but _nooooo...._ the minute the Table heard that Viggo Tarosov was freeing John Wick, and the man was moving here to live with Helen, I was transferred to this backburg instead. How the Hell am I supposed to see the Cubs play at Wrigley's in some assbackwards hamlet stuck between New York and Jersey of all places? Missed the 2016 World series because of John ' _Fucking_ ' Wick. I have half a mind to kill him myself and collect that bounty for moving me out here to the boondocks! Of course, leave it to John to choose somewhere so inconspicuous and boring to decide to play house. Always was a strange one."

I study my signature as he says all this, hating as I always do that my written name always reminds me of a fly for some reason. "I'm a Cubs fan too," I state, still frowning at the piece of paper.

"Right on!" he declares and I look up to see him holding up a withered old hand. After realizing he wants me to give him a high five, I do so very carefully, not wishing to hurt him. Pudgy hand meets suprisingly strong, thin one in the otherwise vacant seeming Bed and Breakfast, creating a sharp loud sound to break the common silence that is obviously driving the feisty old codger insane.

* * *

The man shows me to my room himself. He tells me that he is understaffed for a reason: few people ever make it out this way.

"This place is not like the Continentals you find everywhere else," he comments. "They are all swank and comfort. This is just a cozy little place that attracts even you normal folk on the rare occassion. I get change and actual dollar bills now...can you believe it? Not just gold coins. Odd...I like those old dead presidents better, to tell the truth."

"It's very nice," I tell him truthfully for it is. Standing about three stories high, yet not very wide, the bed and breakfast exudes a kind of peaceful quiet with its comfortable and somewhat worn furniture and its fading wallpaper done in floral and simple patterns.

I suddenly wish that John could be here with me and that we were checking in together. Then I'd know for certain that he is safe and all right.

The hotel manager, for he is obviously that besides being its concierge too, must read the sadness on my face as we finally reach the door to my room. He mistakes its cause for being in regards to my own welfare, though, and not John Wick's.

"Cheer up girl," he says with a kind smile. "It will be all right. I don't think the High Table would even give a fuck if they found out the only reason that you're staying here is because you're looking after a grave. Only if they found out _whose_ and thought they could use you to get to John. But then they'd only reason if he truly cared for you he'd never risk your life by having you do this for him in the first place."

I have never really thought of it that way before but apparently John has. It was probably another reason for all of this secrecy. He's trying to use the influence and wealth he still has and no longer can use in order to repay me for my kindness. I wish I could tell him that merely keeping himself alive is all the thanks I require.

I raise my eyes to look at my new friend who places a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Do you think _he'll_ be all right?" I ask, tremulously.

"John Wick?" the old man exclaims. "He hasn't been all right since Helen died. I doubt he'll be okay even after this whole debacle ends and he somehow manages to survive it. Never seen a man so much in love with somebody as John was in love with Helen. When she died, he died. He's just been so busy running he hasn't had time to realize it yet."

"Oh," I mumble sadly as the man leaves me to return to his place behind the desk of his otherwise empty hotel.

* * *

It's now night of a very busy day.

Lying in bed in a grape colored nightie, the only one that I brought, I think of the days events and how very tired I now am.

My thoughts keep running to what Aurelio and the concierge said about Helen. And as my head rests on my hand on the pillow and slowly becomes wet from the tears I am crying, I realize that I am jealous of her. Quickly I scold myself for being jealous of a poor dead woman. Sure she has John's love, and had the chance once to spend happier times together, but then most of it was stolen by the disease which claimed her life. Sympathy is what I should be feeling and not one of the most destructive emotions that frequently befalls the human soul.

I think of the last few days my mom spent in a palliative care unit. She'd kept her cancer hidden from my sister and I until it was in its final stages. Shortly after Christmas one year she told us that she had breast cancer and it had spread throughout her body. I had held her body trying to comfort her, wishing that the words weren't true, only to feel a strange lump on the back of her skull and knowing that they damnably were. She was taken to the hospital and then the palliative ward of a nearby Catholic nursing home run by nuns. 

It was morbidly fitting in a way, I guess. Mom had been the only Protestant girl on her block. She'd had to attend Catholic schools for a while. She had a love hate relationship with it her whole life. A photograph a friend brought to the home when she came to visit showed my mom in her Catholic schoolgirl uniform twiddling her fingers. She loved her friends but she wasn't exactly thrilled to be surrounded by a group of Catholic authoritarians.

But then that was where she had bee brought to die; I hope when I see my mom again we'll be able to laugh about that.

From when she told us she had cancer to when she made her last difficult breath it took only ten days. She wouldn't eat. All she would do was eat ice chips my sister and I constantly fetched for her. I remembered thinking at the time that when I died I wanted it to be quick; a heart attack seemed preferable to me then than having to watch somebody you love slowly die and no longer quite themselves.

I wonder what John Wick's thoughts are on the subject. There has to be some urge left within him to live, I comfort myself, or else he wouldn't be fighting so badly to stay alive; no matter what my grumpy new friend believes.

Holding on to this, I close my eyes and try to sleep.

There is one thing that I didn't count on to top it all off though: I am suddenly not used to sleeping alone.

Having John beside me for those few nights, I miss his warm body close to mine. It's not even that we physically touched at all except on that last night when he probably only thought I was Helen. It's simply the sense of his being there, a weight by my side, the sound of his breathing, the presence of his weary but decent soul. My hand feels the space which is empty and cold by my side in a bed inside of a room held within a building that is far nicer than my old crummy apartment and I know that John Wick paid for it all. I am also aware that I would be grateful for my own old bedroom back if it meant John was still with me instead of having to sleep alone in a room secured for me by the infamous assassin, missing him and all the while jealous of his wife.

Usually I would be considered some sort of mistress. Except I never slept with the man, his wife is dead and I have only been hired to look after her grave.

I come to the conclusion that it will be a hard night to sleep with an overactive brain and without John Wick lying next to me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Be-Seaing you manager looks like the book seller from Disney's animated "Beauty and the Beast" inside of my mind. Feel free to have him look like whomever you choose, however. That was just who I thought of.


	5. The Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I increase the number of graves I intend to care for by one while Jimmy, the cop, makes his introduction and shows me the true horror of both the High Table and John Wick himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I dedicated my "A Walk in the Clouds" entry to my Grandpa and friend Barney, this entry really belongs to my mother.
> 
> Hi up there, Mom! :D <3

Finally managing to fall asleep, I awake only to find it impossible to fall asleep again. It's a horrible thing to lie there with a thousand different thoughts swirling around in your head, 95% of them bad, and to not get a reprieve. Then again, having OCD I'm used to that. The sun is already casting over the town its first beams of light so I decide to get up and pay my second visit to Helen Wick's grave. Maybe it's a little odd since so little time has passed but I don't know what else to do at this point so simply doing what John Wick has now officially placed me in town to do is only logical. How I'm expected to get there is another matter. John was kind enough to give me the taxi fare to Aurelio's but...

I suddenly remember the envelope the mechanic gave to me and how I was supposed to open it once I arrived here at the hotel. Leaning over the bed, I fetch the bag with the envelope and open it up carefully. Inside there is money and a single gold coin. A lot of money. More money than I have ever seen altogether in my life. This is my pay I realize. It's a testament to how much I have come to care for John, though, that I am disappointed that the envelope didn't contain an actual letter from him. Looking inside of it again I discover another item, however. It's another notecard. In the middle of which is written a single word.

"Hi."

It appears that John Wick not only has a fear of words but the letters they are comprised of as well and has chosen to bestow on my merely two. Still sitting on a bed in the "The Be-Seaing You Bed and Breakfast" as a few birds decide to greet the new morning with their familiar sounds, ones I rarely heard in the heart of New York City, those two little letters mean more than the other twenty four to me.

* * *

I take a taxi back to the cemetary but try to remember the route along the way. Money is no longer a problem but being terribly shy I hate having to make conversation with the cab drivers and always end up feeling like an idiot when I make the attempt to. So if it isn't too too far, I decide to walk when I can. I tip the driver fairly well for having to suffer such an awkward passenger and then head on over to see Helen's grave.

It's the same as yesterday with the same dyed blue roses and I wish to God that it was John, himself, who was able to visit the woman and not a stranger whom had slept with her husband for a few nights. That it was in a completely _non-sexual_ way would probably comfort Helen; that I was in love with John probably wouldn't.

Unsure of what caring for a grave entails, I straighten the flowers since they blew a little out of their former arrangement. With the sleeve of my fake shearling and sherpa coat, I remove any dirt I see on the tombstone and polish it a bit. My sleeve is a mess by the time I am finished and I know I should probably bring the right equipment for the job next time. Feeling that there is little else to do, but hating to polish and run, I kneel in front of the grave for a while, trying to make conversation with a dead woman again.

"So I heard you looked like Erin Reagan on 'Blue Bloods'" I state. "That was one of my mom's favorite shows. She had a crush on Tom Selleck ever since he played Magnum...used to make my dad angry with it..."

It's a return to my stupid small talk but being around the person that John loved the most and lost reminds me irrevocably of the person I did too.

"When my mom was in the hospital and after she had passed on, I'd leave the tv set on in her bedroom," I say and quickly whisper conspiratorially, "Please don't tell the environmentalists."

I start to play with my dirty sherpa sleeve as tears flood my eyes in remembrance. "I'd turn it on and pretend that she was watching 'Blue Bloods' or 'The Goldbergs' or Jimmy Fallon...that she was still there, you know. I even acted a few times like she was there and telling me about them...I'd talk to her...I know, that sounds crazy, and I knew every second that it wasn't really rea, but it made me feel better so I didn't care."

I wonder if John ever did that with Helen. Of course, she had given him Daisy, a little beagle, to occupy his mind after her death and offer him someone to love. And Daisy had succeeded for a little bit until Iosef Tarasov had killed the poor little puppy sending John Wick back into the life he had abandoned when he had fallen in love with Helen. Thinking of Daisy always makes me sad, I realizs. She had been so sweet and trusting...to think of her murder upsets me greatly. I once again question myself, as I have often done throughout my life, why an animal's death sometimes can strike you more than a human beings? The first night I had met John he had killed four men right in front of me. Though I had been shaken that first night, the shock of it had faded. But thinking of Daisy dying always succeeds in making me sick and my soul feel like it actually shifts in distress as my heart breaks. The only way I could make sense of it was that an animal was more like a child in a way.

Animals knew of death or else they'd never get as scared as they did. Fear seems a part of their natual make-up in a way. God grants anything wild fear in order to protect them. I'd witnessed the pet rabbit I had once thumping the ground with its foot in warning as a hawk circled in the sky above my childhood backyard. My mother's pet duck heard the sound and rushed her little ducklings safely inside the shelter provides in order to protect them. So I had always known that animals were instinctively aware of dying. Still, you wondered how much they really understood death in the end and wept for them when it came.

My thoughts on this I hear footsteps approaching, only to look up and see a cop. He is about my age, probably only a few years older. He has a sweet face but seeing the uniform my heart races.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, his face serious and suspicious.

"I'm...I'm..." my brain races trying to think of an excuse to save myself and John Wick. "I'm Helen's cousin," I state.

I'm not sure if Helen had uncles or aunts, nieces or nephews so cousin seems like a vague enough term. Mostly _everyone_ has them but you need never have met them before in your life. 

The cop's face softens. "Good. John picked well, Erin. But he told me that you were smart and a writer so that must help."

"You talked to John?" I ask, hopeful that this means my friend is alive.

"In a way," the cop says, sheepishly. "I got a note written on a napkin with my morning donut about a day ago."

I sigh. "John's big on notes these days."

"My name is Jimmy," he says and we shake hands briefly. "So you're looking after Helen's grave?"

"Yes," I confirm, rising to my feet and swiping the dirt off of my knees. "But I finished for the day.

"Can I give you a lift back to wherever you're staying?"

"Okay," I accept his offer. I quickly run to the blue roses on Helen Wick's plot and take one out of them first, however. "Can we make a brief stop somewhere first?" I ask.

"Certainly. As long as I don't get an APB, alery or something. Can you tell me where?"

"The Wick house," I inform him and watch as Jimmy shakes his head in sorrow.

* * *

I can tell from the way that Jimmy talks about John and Helen Wick two obvious truths:

1\. He admired how much the couple loved one another

and

2\. Jimmy was hopelessly in love with Helen.

I can see it from the way that his eyes light up everytime he mentions her and his lips look caught between a smile in remembrance of the woman and pain from the loss of her. It's always Helen did this, or Helen did that; always how beautiful she was and how good. I know then that Helen was one of those shining lights that every guy is destined to love in their own way. In John Wick's case it was by marrying her; in Jimmy's it was admiring her from afar.

We make quite the pair this cop and myself, loving the Wick's whom we can never actually have.

By the time we reach the Wick residence, the policeman has showcased his love for the woman in the clear way that he has not forgotten a single thing she ever did.

Stopping his car outside of the large house I realize that it isn't really a house at all. Only the frame of it remains. All the rest is ash and debris. It is a hopeless mess but the house wasn't what I came for anyway.

"Wait here," I instruct Jimmy. "I'll be right back."

He nods, a little nervously but appears willing to stay until I return.

It doesn't take me long to find Daisy's grave. John told me about where it was and I see that the ground looks slightly different than the rest. I kneel before it and gently place the blue rose on the eart above where the sweet puppy is lying, knowing that I now have two graves to tend to and not minding in the least.

After a few minutes of paying my respect, I am back sitting beside Jimmy; the cop can tell I've been crying and tries to offer me a Kleenex. There isn't any so I wind up with the napkin from this morning's donut instead. I can smell the trace of a fresh Boston Creme on it. Working in a donut shop has given me the right type of experience for proper donut identification.

"I'm sorry about John," Jimmy says, and I know that he is equally aware of the fact that I am in love with the former assassin as I figured out that he was in love with his wife.

Suddenly I'm angry at Jimmy and Aurelio and even the concierge at the bed and breakfast where I am staying for offering John Wick their sympathy but little else. "WHY?" I shout. "WHY IF EVERYBODY IS SO SORRY FOR JOHN AND CARES ABOUT HIM SO MUCH, WHY DON'T THEY DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?"

Jimmy looks at me in shock and more regret but he doesn't actually say anything. Starting the patrol car, the cop decides to _show_ me instead.

* * *

Down in the basement of a seemingly ordinary bait and tackle store, Jimmy shows me a secret room. He had been able to pass the man who ran the shop with only a casual hello as if it is perfectly normal for cops to burst into the place with a stranger in tow and to take them down into his shop's cellar. And maybe it was in a way. Nothing these people do seems to hold a passing resemblance to the life I knew before.

The store smelt of fish and metal but the room smells like a library would: of old paper and information.

Jimmy picks up a box from off of the floor in the corner. "That's why we can't help John Wick," he claims, handing it to me.

I place the box on a nearby table and start to look through it. The single light dangling from the ceiling provides very little light but, as I take out several files and look through them, I can see in perfect detail the carnage in the photos which fill them. Whole families slaughtered...men cut into pieces...places where the floors have been dyed red with human blood. The dead are not animals in the photographs but they were butchered as if they were and I feel myself mourning for people I will and can never meet.

"Those are High Table commissioned hits. The Table has been around for longer than you and I and our great, great, great grandparents. Sure there are many of us whom would be willing to die to help John Wick but there are not enough of us. And even if we could, we're all pragmatic enough to see the truth: the result would be the same...they'd still be able to hunt him down because those whom serve the Table are endless and everywhere and we are very few in comparison. "

I am shaking badly. The file in my hand wants to slip from my fingers and more than ever I am worried for the man I love. Reading once more the love evidently written on my face, Jimmy softens.

"But the truth is, John doesn't need any of us, Erin," Jimmy tries to offer comfort. "Here."

The cop hands me another file. It is very _very_ thick and when I open and rifle through it I see even more photographs of death and violence. Possibly even worse than the first.

"What is _this_?" I ask in disgusted shock.

"Those are people John Wick killed," Jimmy tells me. "And _that_ is only a handful of them."

I feel the blood running cold from my body as a photograph slips out of the folder and lands on the floor.

It depicts a man with a pencil shoved deeply into his throat. On one side of the neck, I see the seemingly innocent sharpened edge of the lead covered in blood visible. On the other, by the victim's Adam's apple, I see the still pink nub of the eraser sticking out.

Seeing my flushed face, Jimmy smiles and states sardonically, "As you can tell, the Baba Yaga is _more_ than able to take care of himself."


	6. Rising Costs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I deal with my torn feelings towards the sweet, quiet man I let stay with me a few nights back and the fact of his muderously ruthless past while several months later someone adds an ominous inscription to Helen Wick's tombstone.

When Jimmy drops me back off at the Be Sea-ing You, I am shaking so badly even the fiesty old concierge notices it.

"Caffeine withdrawal?" he states, ignoring any emotional cause for a physical one he can handle better instead. "There's a pot of coffee on the table over there. You're welcome to it."

I hate disappointing people; it's probably one of my biggest weaknesses so I thank him and then go over to it and poor myself a lukewarm cup. I know it is lukewarm mainly because I do not aim properly and spill a great deal of it all over my hand before even tasting it.

Obviously having observed me from behind his counter, the concierge shuffles over with a towel and hands it to me. "There," he says. "Wipe yourself off."

"Thank you," I say in a voice as unsteady as my body.

Our eyes meet and I see casual realization flood the elderly man's eyes. "You've seen John's past work haven't you? Jimmy showed you, didn't he?"

I know that the bed and breakfast manager probably saw the cop dropping me off through the large picture windows in the lobby. But how he knew that Jimmy would have shown me photographs of John Wick's handiwork baffles me completely.

I don't have to reel in awe at the old man's telepathy for long however. He gives a cynical laugh and reveals, "Young little bugger can't wait to show off those stupid files whenevef he gets a chance. Problem with being stuck in this boring town: we need to make our own excitement. Especially those used to the more fast paced life of living directly under the High Table's authority."

I give him a motion of my lips that indicate it should be a smile, since the ends shift upwards, but which feels too sad to be counted as anything more than an imposter and frown.

My new old friend moves his hand to my back and gives it a pat or two. "Don't think too badly of John, Miss Smyth. He did what he did because he was paid to. And anytime he did it without being compensated...well they had it coming if you ask me."

I stare blankly into the cup of coffee I only managed to half fill but remain silence. Only when he is walking away do I say, "But did he have to be so _good_ at it?"

The shuffling stops.

"Are we to blame for what God makes us good at? Besides it's what has kept him alive," the man replies. "You, of all people, should be grateful for that."

I turn around to look at the man staring at me condescendingly; the part of skin on his head not covered by hair, shines brightly from the overhead light hanging above us, and his thick glasses magnify his blue eyes that twinkle with knowledge. "You're in love with him, after all."

I look down and know the words are true. However, images of pencils sticking through dead men's throats and rooms filled with shot, stabbed eviscerated or mutilated human beings crowd my mind and make me suddenly feel ashamed of that love.

"Yes," I whisper before asking more loudly, "but should I be?"

Despite seeming to know everything, the concierge shuffles back behind his counter not bothering to even pretend that he has the answer for that particular question.

Or maybe in his wisdom he knows that I am the only one whom can properly answer that one.

* * *

It plagues me throughout the next few months.

Should I still love a man capable of the violence that I saw in the photographs Jimmy showed me? Is it moral to just forget about that carnage and focus on my feelings instead, ignoring the pain caused to others?

My mind runs here and there overanalyzing things without my permission enough as it is and this has just given it more food to turn itself into a glutton over.

All I know is that I am still worried about John Wick wherever he is and I hope he is okay.

And that he is behaving himself by not adding too many to his already large body count.

This last part is hopeless, I know though. To survive John Wick has to kill or be killed; if he is alive it means more blood has been added to his hands.

Hands I still regret never held me once in the way that I really _wanted_ them to.

I am a complete and utter mess.

* * *

Everyday I pay a visit to Helen Wick's grave and Daisy's too and keep it clean and in the respected condition they deserve and John Wick would want. I take away any leaves or debris which might have blown there and try to place fresh flowers in remembrance of them both. Daisies for the most part but I make sure that roses often grace Helen's for John Wick's sake.

After my trip out to the two cemeteries, the one meant to be and the one never intended for such a sad position, I return to my room at the Be Sea-ing You Bed and Breakfast in order to work on my writing. I'm trying to finish an idea that I've had since I was a lonely and shy teenager. It's a story of a young woman in a seaside town. She dreams of adventures and loves. When one day a handsome older stranger comes to stay at the inn her family runs, she learns that he's a spy who is wanted by a nefarious and secret organization. They end up on the run together and it ends with them sailing away in a submarine together off into the sunset.

If one can _see_ the sunset while emerged underwater in a rickety old sub that is.

One whole season comes and goes, the leaves fall off from their trees and snow appears to cover the ones up that never were introduced to a rake. I buy myself a little Christmas tree for my room even though the concierge, whom I now know is called Harrison Flowers, has erected one in the lobby. For the most part it is just he and I in the Be Sea-ing You. Some people check in, few and far between, and while they are here, I usually keep to myself. The week before Christmas is strangely busy and I wonder if that means the area has been chosen by a lot of hitmen as their go to retirement site and they have family and friends coming to visit them or if too many people have purchased assassinations as Christmas presents.

I stay mostly in my room on Christmas Eve and Day other than my visits to see Helen and Daisy.

Underneath my little tree sits a gift that remains unopened because my foolish hope that the receiver might show up has been unanswered.

Its tag reads:

**_To: John_ **   
**_Love from your friend, Erin_ **

I'd warred over adding the word "love" but in the end, I guess, it didn't really matter.

* * *

Today, more than two months after Christmas, and on my Birthday no less, I check on Helen and know instantly that something isn't right; I can tell from numerals I am able to read even from the distance where I am standing: and it will still take several footfalls to even make it to her grave. As I come closer, I discover that somebody has spray painted on it in florescent green a very long number containing several zeroes.

Immediately, I turn around to walk to the police station to report the vandalism to Jimmy, whom I pray will be there instead of cruising around in his patrol car. I've seen him often during these last few months. Usually when I do, it is laced with the desire for any possible hint as to what is going on with our mutual friend and favorite excommunicado assassin. There is never any news though. Just potential sightings here and there. Jimmy doesn't mention the death toll anymore.

Possibly because he read the fact that it disturbs me greatly hidden not so well in my green-gray eyes.

Maybe because I kicked him in the shins the last time he did.

When I enter the station, I see that I'm in luck: Jimmy is standing at the counter with his back towards me. Getting his attention by touching his elbow, he looks at me in confusion as I drag him over to the corner.

"Somebody vandalized Helen's grave," I whisper. I'm never sure who to trust in this town. Not sure I will ever be able to trust anybody again without thinking that they know more than they are letting on or do things that they shouldn't if the price is right.

"What'd they do?" the cop asks.

I list off the number I saw painted on Helen's tombstone. "To make it worse, it was in a horrible green shade," I add.

Jimmy shakes his head in understanding. "Makes sense."

I drop my mouth in horror. Nothing seems logical about desecrating a poor woman's grave. "How the Hell does that make any sense?" I finally find the strength past my growing ire to exclaim.

"Because that's what they upped John's bounty to last night. He's finally killed half of the 12 whom sit at the Table. Now they are all getting really scared."

I am too. But not for the twelve. My fear is reserved solely for John Wick.

If having to live with an eight diget bounty on his head was bad enough, I'm terrified how the man I wish was my lover can survive being worth 1 Billion dollars to the person skilled enough to place him inside his own grave.


	7. Bloody Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While walking through the remains of John and Helen Wick's former residence, I encounter a familiar face.

Back at Helen's grave I am on my knees as I try to scrub off the graffiti so carelessly scrawled on her tombstone. Before returning, I stopped in at the local store, not a Wal-Mart in a place as quaint as this but some smaller family operated business, and purchased some cleaning items: rags, cleaner, green & yellowscrubbers etc... But the more I use them on the gray marble of Helen Wick's tombstone I am discovering that none of them are doing any good. The numerals marking that the husband of the dead woman's bounty has risen to a ten figure sum refuse to come off with a solvent mixed with elbow grease and I can't erase that number no matter how hard I am trying to.

As I continue to move the wet scrubbing sponge up and down on the stone, I try to figure out what type of person would do this to the site where a poor woman, one whom had spent years in pain and slowly dying, had finally been laid to rest. If this is the type of person that John Wick kills I find myself feeling that the world wouldn't be _too_ much worse off with their death.

It's a thought I hate myself for but can't help having, and _believing_ in, anyway.

My cleaning tool is becoming broken in my hands as I rub it over the green numerals without any success. When it breaks completely, becoming little more than shreds of yellow and green sponge, I try my fingernails instead in desperation as I find myself weeping violently. My nails only chip from my effort, though, and start to bleed. I don't care. I feel like a failure who couldn't do the one simple job John requested of me: to keep his wife's grave safe. It was vandalized on my Birthday, no less, further proof that I let my friend down all the more.

Tears are joined by wails and I am left with the strong impression that if somebody were to pass by they would think that some tormented and lost ghost was loitering around somewhere inside of the cemetary.

But it is only me a chubby, tearful mess of a woman.

Seeing that all I am doing is smearing blood onto the stone along with the spray paint, I fall against it, the tears still falling down my cheeks in streams. They feel hot compared to the coolness of the breeze that is blowing. Spring is only a little more than a week away but from the chill in the air it feels like it might as well be a year.

I hastily grab a rag from my side and more detergent and begin to wipe off the blood I have left on Helen's tombstone. It's all over her name, her date of birth and the inscription on it which proclaims that she was the beloved wife of a man named John Wick.

"I'm sorry," I whisper to her.

Sorry that I couldn't keep her from being disturbed when she should finally be resting in peace.

Sorry I made things worse by getting my blood all over her tombstone and the facts that sum up her existence.

Sorry that I'm in love with the husband she left behind.

So many things to be sorry for and the person I seek absolution from is not here to forgive me.

* * *

My fingers are still bleeding when I go to check on Daisy's grave. I wrapped them in the rags I didn't use, a torn piece for each finger, but I see the blood seeping through, and worse I can feel it. To keep the rags in place, I put my gloves on and it feels a _little_ bit better.

I'm grateful that Daisy's grave, at least, has been undisturbed. But then again, I'm probably the only living person besides John Wick that knows where it is or how much the little puppy meant to him. She was Helen's final gift to him: the chance to love something again following her passing. When Iosef Tarasov had killed her, John had felt his hope die. That had sent him on his downward journey back into the Hades he'd been allowed to escape from once before.

I only hoped that history, in this case, would repeat.

"Sleep well little puppy," I tell her; I kiss my hand and place it on the dirt I can see past the snow as I kneel in front of the grave John Wick created himself.

The sky is darkening and I realize that I must have taken longer trying to clean Helen's tombstone than I had at first realized. I should be getting back to the Bed and Breakfast but there is something I wish to do first.

I rise to my feet again and head towards what is left of the house John Wick shared with his treasured spouse. This has been my routine for months now. To wander through it and see what, if anything, I can find. I never spend too long because the longer I stay the more of a trespasser I feel. Besides, after months of searching there is hardly anything left here. Just memories for those whom once lived in the house when it was whole, and they were as well, and I never was one of those two blessed and cursed lovers.

About to turn around and leave, I hear something in the more shadowed area of the room where I am standing. I am sure in this instant that it is a High Table member and that I am about to die for daring to enter their world and aid John Wick in his pure and honorable request. If there is one thing I regret I know now that it is that I never got the chance to see John's sweet face again.

When I finally see the face of the person I assume is a killer emerge from one dark corner, I stand in shock, my heart feeling as if it has stopped and leapt all the way up my throat in order to perch upon my tongue.

It _is_ a killer, after all, but not any of the strangers I expected to meet.

"Hey," John Wick says.

Instantly all of the images that Jimmy showed me of the Baba Yaga's victims flash through my mind and the question comes back stronger than it ever has before.

" _Should I love him_?"

But the question no longer matters.

Running towards the excommunicado assassin, I wrap my arms around his waist as I feel his own holding me tightly in return as he lifts me for a few glorious seconds.

It doesn't matter; I know that I just do.

* * *

We make it back to "The Be-Seaing You" in secret. No taxis, no roads, just John Wick leading me down wooded areas and the backs and alleyways of buildings in the town. As if, even during his peaceful stay in this little area removed from noisy old New York, he had plotted inside of his mind covert maneuverings incase he ever needed to escape from someone or something in the town which was meant to be his safe haven. I know then that maybe John has never truly believed himself to be safe; That he always halfway expected things to turn out badly for himself. He even manages to bypass Harrison Flowers by letting me go in first and then scaling the wall outside up to the window of my room, which I have opened for him. I help to pull John inside but we lose our balance and we end up on the floor together, his body on top of mine.

I can hear our breaths hitch as we meet each other's gaze and then hold that gaze for a few seconds in embarrassed fascination. Then we both set about getting to our feet again at the same time, trying to pretend that we were never in that particularly intimate of positions.

"You're dirty," I comment shyly. It was a fact hidden by the shadows of his former house and the darkness of the night sky we were sneaking around under. Now I can see the dirt and blood soiling his black suit and covering the exposed skin of his face and hands.

John Wick looks down at his clothing. "Yeah. I guess, I am."

"The bathroom is over there," I nod in its direction. "Not that I care. I'm just glad to see you again. You can stay dirty for all I care. You look good in it. You look good in anything. I just thought you might feel better if you get cleaned up."

I'm rambling again, giddy because he has that effect on me. I love him so much and my words become a dangerous tripping hazard whenever I'm around him at the beginning.

"Thanks," he says in bemusement and then disappears into the bathroom. When I hear water running I know that he is taking me up on the offer and wasn't offended.

Meanwhile, I get changed back into my purple nightie. He's seen me in it before so I don't need to feel too shy about wearing it but I have no fresh underwear which is humiliating. No matter. I'll just have to keep my legs close together and not bend over, I remind myself. Taking off the gloves, I stop when I feel my wounded fingers throb and remember why exactly they are hurting. Telling John Wick that his wife's grave was marked with the price of his bounty, while on my watch, frightens me terribly. I'm afraid he will hate me and leave as quickly as he came. Wanting him to stay for as long as he can, the gloves, I decide, will remain on.

Sitting on the bed, the sound of the water reaches me and it's hard for me not to think of the fact that John is naked in the next room and taking a shower, rubbing a bar of soap all over himself. Suddenly I find myself wishing that I could also give him two hands to help scrub away the dirt and blood from off of his attractive body. Feeling like a pervert, I try to distract myself by focusing on my gloved hands. I know that my friend is finished when I no longer hear the water running. It's no surprise then when he emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later. What _does_ surprise me is the fact that he's only wearing a towel around his lower half. My eyes dart there first and my cheeks start to burn as I look back to his bearded face abruptly after having seen the bulge contained there. The hitman shows not a single shred of similar embarrassment, however.

"Your clothes," I say.

"I folded them," he simply states. "They'll need to be washed before I wear them again."

I nod, intending to do it for him tomorrow. I don't completely _trust_ Mr. Flowers yet. Like him: yes. Trust him: not a chance. If he sees me handing him a suit to wash in John Wick's size and style the wily old coot would, no doubt, put two and two together quicker than a first grader.

"You killed six of the twelve," I say after a minute of silence where we've been looking at each other occasionally and looking shyly away anytime else. From my seat on the bed, my legs are folded under me and my knees stick out from my nightshirt like Yul Brenner and Patrick Stewart are hiding under there together.

"Yes," John nods. "That's why I'm here."

He is staring at me now in a way that I find both scary and exciting. I'm not sure what he means or why his eyes are studying me like I'm the oasis lost and dying men find in the heart of a desert. I shift for a moment as John starts to come nearer, his foot bumping into a box I have kept on the floor on his way. It's bright red and green wrapping paper catches his eye and he picks the present up; it's the one that has been waiting for him since Christmas.

" _This_ is for me," he says in as much shock as John Wick can apparently muster.

"Yes," I reply. "It's your Christmas gift."

He comes over with the box in his hands and sits on the edge of the bed wearing only that dratted towel and I know that he can see my blush even better now.

"Can I open it?" he asks with his brown eyes looking like those of the puppy dogs he has become the patron saints for.

"Of course," I say with a smile and brief, honest laugh. "It's for you."

He tears into it with a hitman's zeal and looks up at me after surveying the contents inside of the box, touching and holding some of them with loving affection also.

"Those are all of the things I found in your house that I deemed as somewhat salvageable," I explain.

I'd spent months collecting them. Jewelry that had obviously belonged to Helen. A metal Celtic styled bookmark...a photograph or two. Anything I thought that the man before me would have liked to have kept. The photographs are the items he stares at the longest and seems most moved by.

"She was beautiful John," I comment and lightly touch his back.

It's true. Upon finding the photographs, I had felt my insecurity double and my anguish because of it. But now seeing the way John is looking at the pictures of the woman he loved and lost I am grateful for that pain.

When he meets my eyes again and I see tears starting to fill them I'm pleased all the more because I know that I didn't do _too_ bad of a job and that John is truly touched by my gift and actions.

When he says, "Thank you, Erin," the words aren't really needed because his eyes have said it all; it's just the cake on the icing.

I've always preferred the icing after all.

John Wick places the box on the ground and I move my hands to my knees where the assassin notices them. He raises his eyebrows upon intaking the gloves I'm still wearing and takes my hands in his own. "What are these for?"

"I..."

John takes the gloves off before I can decide on if I should hand him a lie or not. The bits of rags remain in the finger sockets of the gloves and the assassin looks at my revealed and bloody fingertips, the ones adorning the badly damaged nails, with an expression that shows that I was wrong: he _is_ capable of shock after all.

"What happened?" John Wick demands, grabbing my wrists and searching my eyes intently. "Are you okay?"

I bite my lip as I feel myself starting to cry again. The tears come out as forcefully as the truth and I am unable to stop either.

"They spray painted Helen's tombstone with the price of your bounty this morning, John," I groaned. "I tried to clean it off but nothing worked. I'm a failure. You trusted me to keep her safe and I couldn't even do that right!"

John Wick looks down at me with sympathy and pity before I find myself in his arms again, his large hand rubbing my back to offer comfort. I feel his chest, still slightly wet, pressed against my nightshirt clad one. My clothing soaks up a bit of the moisture left on his skin as he holds me. When I feel John's cheek pressed into mine becoming freshly wet though, I know it has nothing at all to do with the fact that he's just been in the shower or my own storm of tears.

I know that John Wick is crying now too.

"I'm the failure, not you. I promised myself when Helen died I'd never fall in love with anybody else. But I have. It's why I had to come here before the Table manages to kill me. I had to see you one last time...so I could tell you that I love you, Erin."

I gasp because I almost can't stand it. John being alive, him not only forgiving me for what happened to Helen's grave but holding me with love and tenderness. And now his confession that he loves me. It feels too good to be happening after months of uncertainty and doubt; too good for my life and for someone like me. I'm afraid that maybe if I so much as make one false breath that maybe God will decide that I don't deserve it, after all, and take it all away from me.

Not wanting to let John continue to think he is a failure, I find the power to finally say something before my silence gives strength to his insecurities as I know from experience that it can. I part from him only so that he can look into my eyes and know that what I have to tell him is the truth.

"But that was what Helen wanted," I say softly and touch the side of his face where several fresh cuts lie. "She wanted you to find someone to love. It doesn't have to be me but...I...I love you too, John."

His mouth is on mine before I am completely aware of it. Though it is my first kiss and he has practically stolen away any breath I have in my lungs, I return it with all of my heart and strength and pray to God that I'm not doing it all wrong.

He releases his hold on me suddenly in order to lift the nightshirt off from my chubby body, an act I protest out of fear, but he is too quick for me to stop him. I'm frightened of what he will think of my less than perfect body but he begins to kiss my breasts, my neck, my face and finally my lips again and I know that my fear was unfounded.

My hands find their way to John's broad back and dig into his bare flesh, as I feel our kiss deepening even further, and my legs part to wrap around his hips as he gently pushes me down on the bed. Remembering my fingertips, I'm afraid I'll smear blood on his body as I did with Helen's marble memorial and I break the kiss, an act which earns John Wick's growl of disapproval.

"I've got blood on my hands," I whisper, our lips three centimeters apart and our breath merging between us as he lies over me.

"So do I," John Wick states before he kisses me passionately again.

Removing the towel, the only thing which is separating us now, the infamous Baba Yaga enters me, drawing blood without violence yet in no less physical a way.


	8. Judases

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Wick and I plan for the future until an act of betrayal puts a crimp in our dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter marks over 300,000 words in this series! Yay! I'm happy about that. :D <3

When I awake in the middle of the night I am certain that John will be gone; that maybe our act of love was only a dream that I had blissfully conjured during the night. Or that perhaps it will be an instant replay of the last night where I had been with him and he had vanished by morning. Instead, I am proven instantly wrong as I feel a strong, warm body behind me and feel his arms wrapped tightly around my middle; his hands are linked like some buckle consisting of flesh and fingers. I remember when I had woken up that previous night, as well, to find him in this same position. Only now he is naked behind me and isn't just resting his head on my shoulder and against my neck but kissing me there too. It tickles and I can't help but laugh alerting him to the fact that I am no longer asleep.

"I wanted to do that the last time," he states before kissing me again.

I breath in heavily. So he didn't think I was Helen that night, I realize with joy. It had been me he had been holding on to tightly and not an illusion.

"Erin was that your...?" he asks

"First time?" I finish.

"Yes."

"Mmm hmm," I say.

He holds me to him even closer and I feel a thrill rush through me from the feel of his body pressed so close against mine.

"You should have told me," he chastises, obviously concerned in case he had hurt me in some way.

"And have you take it easy on me? Not on your life, John Wick. All one billion dollars worth of it."

He laughs and I feel him trying to turn my plump frame over so that we are facing each other. I aid him in his quest and suddenly our lips are locked as his hands hungrily feel my body. I do the same with his in return, finishing by grabbing his head and pulling it towards me while my fingers run through his long, dark hair.

"You want to marry me?" he asks once we take a moment to breath.

"Even if we have to run down the aisle past a hailstorm of bullets."

"When this is all over that is," he states, kissing my forehead.

"It wasn't a question," I smile and press my head close to his heart. "I meant yes...even then."

My fingers touch his sweet face, finding the bare spots in his beard. Hair refuses to grow here due to some scar tissue. The skin is soft and smooth, like this moment we are being allowed to share amidst the pain and chaos of his current existence.

I feel John's strong hands on my hips as he rolls over and lifts me so that I am now sitting on top of him. Looking down at his face staring up at me, I feel that he is ready again. My curly brown tresses hang like curtains on either side of my face and I wipe a few of John's own strands of hair from his forehead. They are clinging to it, held firmly in place from the sweat created by our last act of lovemaking. I shift on his groin and he moans. Tenderly, I lean forward and kiss him as his hands find my back and buttocks. While our lips are joined the lower part of ourselves soon become so as well in one glorious motion, an act smooth as the patches my fingers had earlier been lead to underneath the perfect beard of the assassin that I love so dearly.

* * *

John stays in my room for most of the day. We spend it making love on and off, filled with conversations where he tells me his plans to take down the rest of the Table in between. It all sounds too dangerous and I'm no longer too shy or reticent to tell him this.

"Why don't we just run away together to a nice Amish village," I suggest as we sit on the bed in the daylight, facing one another, still undressed.

He raises a quizzical eyebrow.

"I'm serious," I say. "You can help build barns all day like in 'Witness' and I'll enjoy bringing your meals to you."

He laughs brusquely. "You'd be fine with that?"

I nod.

"Even if I'm too busy putting up barns to..."

Instead of finishing his sentence he pulls me near him and kisses me passionately and I find myself conceding as we fall on to the bed together. Having him focusing on putting up buildings isn't exactly the kind of erection I have in mind for the man.

After we're finished again, John lying on his back beside me while I lie on my tummy by his side, caressing his upper arm, I pout as I furrow my brow and try to find a way out for the both of us. "But still...there has to be somewhere we can run off to and be safe."

I watch John's chest rise and fall as he sighs. "The Table and its agents are everywhere, Erin. The only way is to take them out."

Moving over so my head rests on his chest, I kiss it and give his nipples a few rubs, thinking about how they always looked odd to me on men when I was a little girl. I like John's though. The thought of them along with the man that they are wonderfully attatched to being destroyed by a group of highly trained assassins devastates me. I know that John loves me now; I want a chance at a happy ending for us both. Or, at least, a happy forever since nothing ever ends.

"You'll be safe?" I ask.

"No," he tells me. "Only the dead are safe. I intend to keep living."

After I give the skin of the place where his heart hides under another little kiss, I rest my head there too. While John strokes my back, I fall asleep to the sound of his heart which I pray to God keeps right on beating.

* * *

When I wake up a little later, John is fast asleep. I use the opportunity to get dressed and sneak out of the room in order to get something to eat for us both. All the way down something keeps nagging at me though. The whole atmosphere at the "Be Sea-ing You" seems different. It's too quiet somehow and making me feel uneasy. Of course, it could also be that this is the first time I've been more than ten feet away from John since our reunion. I may have gotten too used to the way it feels oh so good just to have him by my side.

Not to mention, inside of me.

I make it to the kitchen without seeing a single person. However, when I'm leaning over and searching the fridge for something to grab for John to eat when he wakes up, a bit of roast beef or some slices of turkey, I suddenly feel a hand on my back and stand up immediately only to find Harrison Flowers looking at me intently.

"I haven't seen you today, Erin," Flowers states. "I was beginning to worry maybe you'd done something drastic up there after you heard about John."

So the man has heard about the raise in our mutual friend's bounty. This bothered me in a way I could not pinpoint. As did the mean little glint I had never seen before in his heavily bagged eyes.

"I slept in," I lie, hoping that John and I had been sucessful in our attempts to keep our volume down. It had been difficult but necessary; I was supposed to be in my room alone. And I wasn't known for watching that _particular_ type of movie. The cable Bill's could attest to that. "I spent all night crying."

"I was wondering," Harrison says and nods in too polite of understanding. "You weren't up to see Helen's grave this morning."

Calling on my guilt isn't too difficult to help me look convincing when I tell him, close to tears, "They vandalized it yesterday. Spray painted numbers on it. When I reported it to Jimmy, he told me what it meant. I felt so bad after that. As if I had failed both John and her."

"You mustn't blame yourself," he comforts me sincerely and from his kindness, I think I must have just been paranoid out of wanting to be with John so badly now, knowing that if he finds a way to survive we can finally be together. "Jimmy's outside. He has news about John."

I have to fight the urge to look towards the bedroom where I know John is probably still sleeping. It's safer to just let Harrison think that John is still up in New York, taking down the rest of the twelve and far way. I can just listen to what Jimmy has to tell me and then return to the hidden assassin. The more I keep my mouth shut I will be able to protect John, I reason with myself.

I head out to the Bed and Breakfast's front doors and the old man places his hand on my back. However, as I cross the threshold and see no sign of a police car or Jimmy the cop himself but only a long black limousine outside, I begin to worry. The feeling does not improve one tiny bit as two men emerge from the backseat and I feel what I assume is a gun replace Harrison's hand on my back.

"Sorry, Erin, but a billion dollars is far too tempting. Even more so is when I told them that they could use you as bait to lure John to them, the Table promised that they would relocate me. You know how _much_ I hate this crummy backwater burg."

I turn to glare at him and decide to paint the old man's face with a gob of my spit. Harrison takes it as if it is only deserved and then pushes me towards the two sharply dressed men whom I now see are identical twins of slavic decent.

"Be seeing you," Harrison Flowers tells me smugly and then walks away in a direction opposite to the building which he loathes, as if he never plans on seeing it again.

My mind presents the option of screaming for John to save me but seeing as though that would alert my kidnappers that he is nearby, I decide that it is not an option. I will not risk John Wick's life to protect my own. Besides he will wake soon enough. He's smart enough to find out what happened especially if he knows Harrison Flowers better than I do and suspects his possible betrayal.

Once again, if I only manage to keep my mouth shut everything will be okay.

However, as the men shove me in the backseat, and we swiftly drive away in the direction of the city where I left a job at the donut shop in order to look after Helen Wick's grave, my silence comes back to haunt me. A loud explosion shatters the otherwise calm evening into as many pieces as John Wick's life is worth. My scream soon joins with it as I turn to look out the window behind me; The Be-Seing You is crumbling to the ground in a cloud of dust. It is a horribe soul shredding experience to watch the place you have called home demolished in what amounts to only a few seconds, especially when your most precious possession is housed inside it. But to the High Table such emotions are inconsequential; It's service now completed, and in gratitude to Harrison "Judas" Flowers, they have sucessfully imploded the Bed and Breakfast to the ground.

And, unbeknownst to them, they have done it with John Wick inside.

* * *

By the time we reach New York City, I am a mess. I am trembling so badly, my eyes feel raw and sore and I cannot seem to fathom how my life went from bliss to horror in only a few minutes. My captors have hit me a few times to make my wailing stop but seem to attribute my state of devastation to fright more than grief. They don't know John was inside of the building that they just demolished, after all. They think I am only terrified over my own impending death.

I'm not worried about that though...not if John is dead. 

Our destination in New York is one I recognize almost instantly from John Wick's description of it. But it is only a certain emotional numbness I experience as they drag me up the building's front steps. I see a handsome bald, black man at the front desk and although I know it is a person whom John never found the strength to be angry at, it is the man by his side that holds my primary attention.

It is John Wick's own Judas.

"Hello Miss Smyth," the man named Winston greets me in his most gentlemanly tone of voice. "Welcome to the New York Continental Hotel."


	9. Penance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winston seizes the opportunity for redemption.

Having heard a little about the Continental from John and also a lot about the man who ran it, Winston, it is disarming to both be given an actual image inside of my mind and no longer need to just rely on my own imagination to conjure up the building and then a face. The hotel is as beautiful and imposing as I would have expected of a safehouse for assassins. Taken to what I assume is Winston's suite inside the building itself, my curiosity wants to see more. Hotels have always fascinated me since childhood. I had always dreamt of staying in one and being able to messy up somebody else's room for a change and have the maid be the one to clean it up afterwards. Okay. Given my status as a rather polite and kindhearted child I probably wouldn't have done that. Infact, part of a hotel's appeal was that it was so nice clean and organized as opposed to my own room that I would never have possessed the heart to tarnish that.

My dad had been messier actually. Once my mother had cleaned his office, which had beforehand looked like a tornado had gone through it soon to be followed by a hurricane and possibly a rock concert. She'd been so happy until dad arrived home and complained about how he couldn't find anything. Mom proceeded to grab all the boxes she'd put everything away safely in and dump them in the middle of the room, successfully giving up and resigning as his maid.

Looking at the back of Winston, as I have been pushed down the Continental's corridors by the twins, I know that he would probably be grateful that I was the one brought to his Hotel and not my dad.

Not that I am a guest. I am undoubtedly a hostage or kidnapped victim.

The rope that is being placed around my neck and also wound around my hands and legs reminds me uncomfortably of this. Not that I care that much by now. My heart is broken. 

I sit on the elaborate settee in Winston's ornate suite trying not to break down into tears over having watched helplessly as the Be Sea-ing you had collaspsed to the ground; presumably with the man that I loved inside of it. I can't keep it all inside, though, no matter how I try. Tears are escaping from my eyes as the strong length of rope is weaved around the selected parts of my anatomy.

"Do you _have_ to make it that _tight_?" Winston asks, turning to watch the steps taken to assure my captivity in offense. "The poor girl is in tears!"

One half of the assassin version of the Tweedle boys just makes the knot even tighter, earning a snort of displeasure from Winston as he looks to Heaven, begging God to spare him from imbeciles.

When the two twins stand, they turn and face the Englishman. They construct a complete sentence by taking turns offering up a single word.

"Tonight..."

"Two..."

"Men..."

"Will..."

"Come..."

"By..."

"To..."

"Pick..."

"Her...

"Up."

"She will be taken to the Table?" Winston asks casually.

Studying his face, I realize that the hotel manager vaguely resembles Lovejoy on that old A&E program I'd watched once or twice as a prepuescent.

"Yes," Flotsom and Jetsum state in unison.

Winston nods and the twins leave Winston and I alone. As I continue to sniffle, I realize that the High Table's faith in the man they had chosen to manage the Continental must have been fully restored if I am being left solely with him on my way to see the infamous and cruel High Table. Of course, he has already proven his fealty by shooting John from off the Hotel roof, an act John Wick has never forgiven the man for.

Neither can I.

If that event had never happened maybe John never would have met me and he'd be out there safe and alive somewhere.

Bursting into another wail and sobbing fit, I seem to embarrass the only other person in the room with me. My grandfather was British and he had also been very reserved and fearful of emotions, both his own and anybody else's. The only time I had known my Grandpa to cry, actually, was when he had read my copy of "Where the Red Fern Grows" and the dogs had died.

Doggies dying always seemed to do the trick.

I briefly wonder why so many people thought that killing off sweet, innocent dogs made for such good entertainment.

While I cry violently over John's death, Winston slowly makes his way from the window and towards where I am sitting and weeping on his settee. I see him out of the corner of my eye but can scarcely afford him much attention besides absently acknowledging that he is approaching me like a scientist whom was not properly attired might draw near to some visitor from another planet: fearful he might catch something but also oddly fascinated.

Sniffing as I try to compose myself, I look up to see a pristine white handkerchief being dangled in front of my face.

"Thank you," I say politely. "But I'm a little too tied up at the moment to take it."

In shock I watch as Winston sits by my side and begins to wipe my tears away himself. "There, there," he states. "It won't be so bad. You will see. The Table can be most merc...merciful."

The lie catches in his mouth, almost as distasteful to him as a cheap brandy must be.

Brushing one of my brown auburn curls away from my face, Winston smiles almost warmly at me. "And if Jonathan cares for you as Harrison Flowers informed the Twelve, err Six, that he does, he will show up soon enough, guns blazing, and maybe a pencil or two as well, to play the role of valiant protector."

More tears fall from my eyes in a furious burst along with some liquid from my largish nose. "But he can't!" I wail in devastation. "He...he was in the Be Sea-ing You when they destroyed it!"

"No!" Winston murmurs, looking as devastated as I feel.

I nod, almost choking myself due to the rope around my neck in the process. "We had just fininshed...finished making love." I don't share that we had infact spent the whole day going at it off and on like two rabbits, memories I will cherish for the rest of my life, no matter how short that is. What I do share is how I am feeling. "And I don't care if the High Table kills me when he doesn't show up. I'd rather be with him in Heaven then face living without him!"

Winston slaps me then, shocking me out of my crying. His fingers strike my face harshly and leave my skin feeling as if it is burning.

"Don't talk that way, you damn silly girl," he chastises. "Did you see his body?"

I shake my head, sure I feel my skin rising where his hand has struck it.

"Well then," Winston states. "John Wick isn't that easy to kill. I should know."

I watch as the Englishman walks confidenly and swiftly to a desk. Eerily calm, he pulls out a knife and returns to where I am. He grabs my tied up hands and starts to cut me free. "Why?" I ask in shock. "Why are you helping me? You tried to kill John once."

As he continues to cut through my binds, Winston meets my eyes with his piercing ones of blue. "That was when I thought he had no reason to live. Helen was dead, he only wished to live to remember her...I foresaw the pain of his existence: always running, forever grieving. I believed it was part mercy I was giving to Jonathan. But you say that he made love to you?"

I nod painfully again. "Often."

"That means Jonathan has fallen in love again," Winston says happily as he cuts through the rope at my feet. "I thought that he never would after Helen's passing. I'll be damned if I let the Baba Yaga's piece of happiness be taken from him for a second time."

Pulling me to my feet, the rope falls around my shoes as Winston looks at me with urgency. "Let's go!"

The manager of the Continental pulls me deeper into his suite, passing what appeared to be forgotten, missing or stolen masterpieces from the long dead past great artists. Whether they belong to Winston or the hotel I do not know. Probably, I know, in the man's mind it is the same thing. He loves the Continental as much as John Wick loves Helen. That was what had partly motivated him to do what he had done as well. But in the months which have passed since he had adorned the role of a Judas it is obvious that Winston has learned to regret his act of betrayal. This is his opposing act of penance: to save the woman his friend loves.

Otherwise, as he had said, Winston knows his damnation will be secured and his chance at redemption too far past to ever hope to seize it again.

He brings me to what appears to be a wall with a pad and presses a number into it. "This really is reserved for emergencies but this constitutes as one, don't you think?"

"Most certainly," I agree.

We stand together and I listen in shock to the sound of an elevator rising up towards us. The wall opens up suddenly revealing the elevator itself. Despite being taken off guard, Winston doesn't need to drag me into it, my feet can't take me into its hope of escape fast enough. Once inside, Winston presses in another number.

"We'll go to the kitchen and exit out the servant's exit," he informs. "News of your abduction and the trap for Jonathan hasn't been widespread yet. We should be able to get you out of here and to safety before anybody shows up to bring you to the Table."

It sounds like a wise, good and solid plan.

However, I can tell that it has become derailed when the elevator opens and Winston's expression turns to one of dismay.

It is the kitchen alright. Several people garbed in the uniforms associated with those of chefs or waiters are busily bustling here and there. It is the two bald men standing in the middle of the room next to each other which seem distressingly out of place. One is Asian, with outstanding eyes and wearing a dark martial arts robe. The other is a tall handsome black man, wearing a suit of European finery.

"Zero, Cassian," Winston greets somberly.

"Winston," the man the Englishman had tilted his head towards when he had said the name Zero states. "We'll take the girl now."

"It seems the Twelve, err Six, were right," the man whom must be Cassian states. "You did have some fondness for John Wick left inside of you. Don't worry though. You won't by the end of the day. Neither of you will."

I turn to find Winston turning his head to look at me also. As we meet each other's eyes, I gulp, guessing that the High Table doesn't trust Winston all that much after all.


	10. Audience with a King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Winston's help, I escape from Zero and Cassian and find myself running on the streets of New York City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've realized that this story, at this point, is essentially me going throughout the John Wick universe and meeting up with the various characters. I'm sure, if Keanu Reeves ever read it, he would look at me and say (and I'm putting words in his mouth here, which I never really want to do,)
> 
> "Erin. You should have had me in it more. What? I was only at the beginning and end essentially."
> 
> And I would look at him and say, "But, yes. You were my white rabbit and I was like your Alice in Wonderland. You were my whole motivation. You didn't need to be there the whole time. You were the stone thrown into the middle of the water: every ripple you see created is because of it. Picture yourself as that stone, Keanu. You were the most important figure.
> 
> "Besides...I wrote myself being an idiot for most of the story so stop your complaining." :/

Winston casts his gaze between Cassian and Zero and retains his usual cool reserve. While my alarm is going off about as loud as a Metallica concert, Winston is suddenly acting as if the two assassins sent by the High Table to bring me in, and also punish him for the insubordination they had predicted, are two girl scouts having entered the Continental's kitchen to try to sell him some cookies.

But from the look on his face, Winston is obviously _not_ about to buy any.

"I advise you two men to depart from the premises _immediately_ , if you know what is best for you."

Zero and Cassian turn to one another and exchange a look which is both amused and smug.

"Well that would go against the Table's direct orders," Cassian states. "And you are _fully_ aware of what defying those entails Winston."

"Yes," Zero agrees. "Need I remind you of what your precious Continental looked like following your little act of Parabellum?"

"Oh yes," Winston replies, reminicing thoughtfully. "If I recall they needed to cart you away on a stretcher after Jonathan was through with you, Zero."

Zero goes to take a step forward, in anger, but Cassian's arm shoots out, without looking at his companion, preventing him from gaining physical retribution for the humiliating memory. The black man keeps his gaze centered on the Englishman by my side.

"I think you'd better just shut it and come with us," he suggests. "If you know what's best for you, that is."

I watch as Winston lowers his head in defeat. The action seems about as genuine as a politician's campaign promise, though. He offers a sad little shrug and then raises his head and eyes again, his defeat now mixed with triumph. "I guess, that means tonight we are eating _**al fresco**_."

Upon hearing that last word, spoken louder than the others and with the force of a general's command, the waiters and chefs, which had been surrounding us beforehand in seeming ignorance of the two assassins threatening the chubby woman and their older boss, instantly become aware. They drop what they are doing and attack Zero and Cassian with whatever is handy. The first mark of their apparently prearranged assault arrives when a knife flies through the air and strikes Zero on his right shoulder blade. The Asian man doesn't so much as blink or groan but immediately reaches over to his back and pulls it out, sending it hurtling back to his assailant. The assassin has far better aim, hitting the chef, whom had been dicing onions before the incident, right in the heart. I watch in horror as the poor chef falls into the onions. His eyes are open but he no longer has to worry about tears.

The Continental kitchen descends into madness as the various staff members continue their assault on obviously much better skilled assassins. A waiter picks up a pot of boiling water, intending to pour it on Cassian, but only receives second degree burns when the hitman pushes it on top of his head instead.

While the waiter is screaming, Winston grabs my hand and pulls me forward silently, not wanting to win our collectors' attention by the sound of an order. As we run across the kitchen to a door which is waiting for us like a beacon of hope, we carefully avoid the flying kitchen utensils, bullets and flying bodies. "Damn, I hate having to interview new help!" the hotel manager swears as a waiter is thrown into the wall ahead of us.

We are just moments away from reaching the door when Cassian pounces on Winston, whom is half a foot behind me, having had to step over the dead or injured man has slowed him down by a fraction of a second. I turn and am about to try to help him when Winston shouts out, "Go girl! Just bloody well _RUN_!"

I spin around again and head for the door, throwing it open and running out of the Continental and into the New York City air, soggy as it is. My weight is not preventing me from heeding my fallen companion's wish and I am running away from the hotel as fast as my thick legs can take me. Still, I find myself crying just as the chef had been unable to. John's possible death, Harrison's betrayal and then Winston's capture in only a few hours, I don't know how much more loss I can face in one day and still consider myself still somewhat sane.

* * *

As night falls over the City, I hold myself and wander down its familiar streets. I want to find shelter but my mind is too on edge and filled with mourning to think straight. My old apartment is probably being let to someone else by now and besides the Table would probably have marked it down by now as once having been mine and thus a place I might turn to for refuge. The donut shop is probably also off the list for this fact.

Remembering one option left, I walk down an alley and approach the first homeless man I see. He is lost in a pile of papers and snoring or pretending to. I feel inside my pocket and grab what is contained inside. Taking my hand out from the pocket and holding it out with the item lying on my palm, I clear my throat to earn the man's attention.

"Can you help me?" I ask.

The man with the long graying beard's eyes fly open and he gazes at the object even before he looks at me.

"Certainly," the vagrant says. "But Tick Tock girl...time is money."

He then snatches the gold coin out of my open palm.

* * *

I am taken to meet with the Bowery King, a man John had told me worked under the Table. This makes him a possible aid as well as a possible enemy. These days the King operates from an underground kingdom whereas before he used to prefer the rooftops of buildings. And just as in those days before the High Table had slashed the man for his helping John Wick in murdering Santino D'Antonio, when the Bowery King had procured pigeons to help him deliver information all throughout New York City, he now has found another creature to serve him. But while his old servants had worked for seed his new ones will work for cheese, I think ruefully. When I am brought to the King, I find him sitting on his makeshift throne, drinking a Fanta soda and stroking the fur of a rat which is sitting on his knee.

"Erin Smyth," his Highness booms and his voice echoes off of the wet and dripping walls, hitting everything in between. "John Wick's new sweetheart. Didn't suspect he liked them queen size but with Wick who knows."

My face turns red in either shyness or embarrassment.

"I hear you seek our help."

"Yes," I tilt my head. "I need out of the City. I need to get back to Jersey."

I don't tell him that I want to return to the Be-Seaing you in order to search through the rubble for my lover's body.

"We can manage that," he smiles his gap toothed grin at me and then turns to the younger bearded man by his side. "Can't we, Earl?"

Earl nods slowly but he seems a little wary of his sovereign.

"But first she looks hungry, doesn't she?" the Bowery King comments and turns back to grin at me. "If John likes his women big these days can't dissappoint him. We'll get you something to eat first."

"I'll take her," Earl says, stepping forward.

"No!" the Bowery King proclaims. "You're needed here."

The King looks at the graying bearded man by my side and a knowing glance passes between them. My eyes fall to the rat sitting on the Monarch's knee, staring up at me with his dark shining eyes and I know I have reason to trust it far more than I trust either the Tick Tock man or the Bowery King.

"You'll take her," the King asks.

"Yes," the man by my side states as he grabs my upper arm painfully. "I know just the place to go to on the way out of the City."

My head turns quickly to look at him, and while he is only grinning down at me, I am sure that I have just missed him bestowing a wink upon his ruler.

* * *

Sometimes you are led to your fate simply because there is nowhere left for you to go. As the Tick Tock man practically pushes me forward to the site of what is meant to be my last meal in the City, I feel this way. I have made all the wrong steps. Give me the choice and I'll always guess wrong, it seems. And now when I try to make one that will lead me away from wherever my guide is driving me towards, he is right there to drag me back on to that ill-fated path of my own choosing. We walk down the streets back into the heart of the City and Tick Tock man even whistles a bit: a song a cricket once sang to a wooden boy in order to instruct him on how to call on his conscience when needed.

The man leading me to my supper hasn't seen his own in ages, I am willing to bet.

We finally reach what looks like a sushi bar, where a bald man in a robe is facing his back to us and a cat sits lazily and unamused on the counter.

"Here you be pretty one," my companion says as he gives me a shove towards the sushi bar in front of me.

When the chef standing before me turns around I already know who it would be.

Zero gives me a wide grin and then bows his head. "I'm sorry, Erin," he apologizes. "We're closed today. You see, I seem to have had a little accident with my shoulder."

I feel Tick Tock man grab me from behind as a car screeches to a halt behind us under a crescent moon sky.

"A billion dollars is a lot more than one gold coin," my guide informs. He sounds almost apologetic, at least, but it is only really a very small comfort.

I try to run away but Zero pulls out a long saber from his side with his working hand and points it directly at my throat. Tick Tock backs away as the assassin effortlessly hops over the counter while keeping the weapon aimed steadily at me. When the man holding me has backed all the way into the vehicle behind us both, he lets me go in order to open the limousine's door and I am thrown inside, Zero close behind me. The backseat isn't empty, I soon discover. Winston is lying there badly beaten and bound with rope so he resembles a calf at a rodeo. I take his head in my hands and begin to stroke his black hair. "Shhhh," I whisper as he tries to open his black and blue, swollen eye. "It'll be okay."

I throw an angry glance at Zero whom is sliding in next to Cassian.

"Yeth," Winston tries to speak. "Thonathhhhan."

I nod and bite my lower lip as I stroke his poor bloodied cheek, trying not to sob. "Yes. John will come."

Turning quickly and gazing out the window, I pray to God that John Wick possesses more lives than the cat still lying self satisfied and bored on the counter of the sushi bar we are driving away from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Winston here was an ode to Zaltar in the Supergirl movie.
> 
> "On girl!"
> 
> The part in this about usually making the wrong decision is right, though. 
> 
> But I think I found a way for me to finally meet Keanu Reeves because of it. All I have to do is buy an autograph of him off of ebay for a very high price. I'm sure that soon after I'll be turning a corner and then he'll be there. It doesn't matter that I live in a small Ontario town; he'll be there, you can count on it. And you wanna know *how* I know this? Because I am cursed. If I spend money on something it will immediately go on sale the next day. And I will go, "Darn! I should have waited" It's like Fate likes to laugh at me in this way. 
> 
> So if I buy an autograph I'll see Keanu soon after and will be able to get one for free. Then Fate will think I'll be kicking myself for having spent so much money on one before hand.
> 
> But the joke will be on Fate this time...
> 
> You see, I'll have finally manipulated it for my benefit.
> 
> The truth is, it won't matter how much money I virtually wasted because I'll have met Keanu Reeves...
> 
> And that is truly priceless. :D <3


	11. Golden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am taken to meet with what remains of the High Table.

The ride to wherever _whatever_ of the High Table remains is a mostly quiet one. At one point, cradling Winston's head in my hands and realizing once again how badly they have beaten him for helping me, I start to cry. It has all been too much, one heartbreaking and lousy turn after another and I can no longer keep it all bottled up. There is a weight on my soul which feels almost too heavy for me to continue to carry. Especially having lost John and my only other friend in New York City being assaulted to within an inch of his life by either one or both of the men sitting across from me in the back of the limousine.

"Damn," Cassian states, looking at me.

"What?" Zero asks, turning to stare at him.

"She's crying."

"And?"

"I _hate_ it when a woman cries," Cassian grumbles. "Reminds me too much of Gianna."

He's fidgeting in his seat as he remembers the woman he guarded for years, the one her own brother sent John Wick to murder for him and fulfill the marker he had been given years before in exchange for helping John in the impossible task which allowed him to marry Helen. I briefly think of Helen and her once more abandoned grave, feeling guilty I haven't been to see it all day. It has become habit by now, a daily ritual, and my OCD tries to convince me that I'm a horrible person for neglecting my duties, even if there were more than a few insurmountable obstacles placed in my way.

Like the two High Table assassins about to get into a fight.

"Gianna D'Antonio?" Zero repeats incredulously. "I met her once or twice; that woman had a heart of ice and bigger balls than both of us put together, man."

The former bodyguard grabs the sushi chef by his collar and holds him about an inch from his face.

"She cried on the _inside_!"

Zero holds up his hands. "All right...if you say so."  
Cassian drops the other man onto the seat. Zero still appears to be less than convinced about the sensitivity of the dearly departed Gianna but he focuses his attention now on me and the tears rolling down my cheeks.

"Don't worry," he tries to offer some comfort. "You are being given quite the honor actually. I know I'm thrilled! The Table rarely lets a location for one of their meetings known and they never ever meet in the same location twice or invite someone they aren't planning to exterminate immediately. But to secure the woman whom will help them lure John Wick into a trap...well for that they are willing to make an exception."

"And what if John won't fall for it?" I ask, not adding, "What if he _can't_?"

"Oh he will," Cassian says, joining in on the conversation. "Knowing he's the one that got you into this mess...if he cares at all for you...when they finally set into motion their little plot, John Wick will fall for it and the only thing the great Baba Yaga will be scaring are the worms he'll be giving indigestion to six feet under."

I hold Winston close to me, fearing that Cassian has received his hope for revenge already and John Wick is dead and lying under what remains of the "Be Sea-ing You." Just another grave, this one made without expectation or epithet. I suffer sorror because I won't be able to tend to the man I am in love with's final resting place. But I will probably be in my own one soon enough.

* * *

The limo pulls up to a building I instantly recognize. It is one of the most infamous structures in all of Manhattan and while quite a few times I have felt on the verge of needing to visit it I have thankfully never actually been here before.

"Bellevue Hospital?" I exclaim as Zero pulls me out of the backseat with him while Cassian brings Winston.

"Yeah," Zero states. "Kind of takes your breath away doesn't it? The Table's sheer brilliance! Their sublime audacity to actually choose this as a place for one of their meetings?"

I feel Cassian behind me as he handles Winston's still unconscious form as if it is about 150 pounds of ground beef. "I think of it more as a statement," the man says, leaning down to whisper into my ear. "You were _crazy_ to get yourself involved with John Wick."

Remembering John and his sweet and silent ways, his strength and his decency, his tender touch and his passionate lovemaking I have to disagree. "No," I reply even though I am facing my imminent death after coming to the conclusion of what I need to do. "The crazy thing would have been _not_ to get involved with him at all."

* * *

I am dragged through the bustling New York hospital with nary a second glance. Just one more patient, willful or not, that really doesn't make all that much of a difference. Maybe they know what's going on, I think. Mostly everybody in the City seems to. Why I must have been one of the only people making her way throughout it who had never heard of the High Table. Me: innocent, ignorant ot just plain gullible...take your pick.

Being pushed inside of an elevator which had previously been labelled "Out of Order," all four of us ride it to an upper level and I see Winston beginning to stir.

"Hey," I smile as he opens his one good eye and focuses it on me. "Glad to see those beautiful peepers...err...peeper."

"Wh-ere arth fwee?" he asks past his damaged lip.

"Bellevue," I answer. "About to see the six."

"Fiffgures," Winston mumbles and rolls his eye.

When the elevator door opens, we step onto a floor which is both dark and deserted. Zero's hand is so tight around my arm that I am losing circulation there. Winston is faring no better being manhandled by Gianna D'Antonio's former protector. The deserted hospital corridor becomes our own personal yellow brick road on our way to see the terrified remnants of the High Table. Finally, outside of a door which appears to have been freshly painted black, the assassins bring our journey to a halt and we are basically thrown inside of an elegant and candlelit room, containing a large window showing a midnight skyline with a very long wooden table sitting at its heart. A little too long. While six figures of varying race and sexes are sitting at it, half of it is visibly vacant, the people meant to sit in the seats growing cold thanks to John Wick having terminated their sorry asses.

One figure is more imposing than all the other living members of the High Table. Though, if she was not dressed to catch the light offered by the candles the darkness at the head of the table would have likely enveloped her. She is dressed solely in deep gold the color of honey; on her face she wears golden, metallic warpaint manufactured by Covergirl and her hair is an unnatural shade to match it. Her eyes are blood red, however, and from the luminescent quality of her pale skin I am betting that she is an albino whom pays her hair dresser very well to dye her straight, one sided shoulder length tresses gold whenever her white roots have the audacity to show.

This woman is in her late forties.

This woman is _pissed_ off.

And this woman sits at the head of the table. A golden calf to anybody foolish enough to worship her as the other five sitting framing her obviously do.

"This is the bait?" she spits in a voice that sounds like she washed down a bowl of nails with a cup of Draino. It is a voice starkly opposed to the honeyesque shade she has clothed herself in.

"Yes, Ichor" Zero and Cassian say in unison.

"Good," she replies. "Now get the Hell out of here. You have quotas to fill. And Administration informs us you are both sorely behind!"

The two assassins glance at each other and then toss us to the floor. I go to Winston again and hold him. "Quith alrith..." he mutters, falling back into the peace of unconsciousness.

Ichor stands and stares down the long ancient table at us. "You aren't much...besides your _size_ ," she comments. "Where the Hell did you first meet the Baba Yaga?"

I remembered him stumbling into the donut shop that one fateful night after which he has dominated my life without even being there. "A donut shop where used to I work," I answer.

"And what did John Wick want with a little _nobody_ like you?" she sneers. "A waitress at a fucking pastry shop?"

I once more thought of Helen Wick's grave and how it was still sitting there with the numerals spray painted all over it. "He paid me to look after his wife's grave," I state.

Ichor laughs in derision, possibly the cruelest sound I have ever heard in my life. "Why? She's dead and gone? You think any of us mourn the fucking missing six? We brought you here only to keep on living ourselves not out of any fucking respect for them. And you are going to help us. Pathetic little inconsequential mouse that you are!"

I rise to my feet now and stare at her down the length of the Table defiantly. "You can't kill a man who is already dead," I spit at her.

I'm not sure that he is; John Wick might very well be lying under the rubble of an imploded Bed and Breakfast in Jersey. But...still I can't be sure of it. All I can be sure of is that if he is alive and he comes looking for me he will fall into their trap and then most certainly die. I don't want to risk that happening. Not after all this and having endured watching what might have been his death already once. I'd rather the High Table believe that he has died already and deem that I am useless to them. I'd rather they kill me before they can use me to hurt John Wick. Better that he lives to avenge me, like he did with Daisy, than die trying to save me. I can live with my own death not his.

Well...you know what I mean.

"How do you know this, bitch?" she demands, hitting a white fist, bearing golden nails, on the table before her.

"Before Harrison Flowers turned me in, John Wick had come to see me," I inform. "He was fast asleep in my bed when your men detonated the bombs and collapsed the hotel," I say, tears stinging my eyes.

Those tears struggling not to fall, convince the golden woman before me more than anything else, I believe. She suffers no sorrow herself but any predator is well acquainted with the prey it considers to be weak. She knows that I believe that John Wick is dead and that is enough for her.

"What the Hell do we need you for then?" she asks me in giddy maliciousness. "One of you take out your fucking gun and put us all out of the misery of having to look at her."

Before I close my eyes, I see a man in an emerald suit, with pure white hair, reaching into his pocket as if he has been dying this whole time to end my life and doesn't want anybody to deny him the pleasure first. Expecting to hear the sound of the silenced bullet which will kill me, I am surprised instead to hear several much louder sounds instead. Infront of me, I can hear the sound of glass shattering; behind me comes the sound of a door being knocked right off of its hinges. I instinctively drop to the floor and shield the manager of the Continental Hotel as that same door hits my own back but not before something hits my face. Gunfire erupts inside of the room and I hastily fling the loose door infront of Winston and myself for protection.

Peeking over it after a few seconds, I take in the sight before me. I see the members of the Table battling with three men, new to the scene. The Bowery King is here and knifing to death one Table member, slashing his body several times with relish. Tick Tock Man has joined in and is garroting another one with the chain of a pocket watch. Earl has a gun to the head of another one of the six; when he pulls the trigger, he sucessfully brings the number of place settings for the table down to three. Seeing that two other members are lying already dead on the floor of the office in the Bellevue Hospital, one of them being the gentleman whom was about to shoot me, I amend that number to one:

Ichor seems to be fighting heatedly with someone behind the large chair she had been previously ruling from. I see a flash of gold moving swiftly with a shadow of black in the darkness of the opposite side of the room.

Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I look around to see a familiar elderly man kneeling on one knee by my side.

"Harrison!" I exclaim.

"Hello Erin," he greets.

"You're here! I thought you were..."

"A traitor?" the old man smiles at me. "For as long as John needed me to be; you see, it was all a part of the plan."

I rise to my feet at his words, the sound of bullets flying long since having died off. My eyes search for a better glimpse of the final unidentified assassin, the shadow, that is in the room with us. At the other end of the table, I watch in shock as, moving closer into the candlelight, Ichor loses her battle: her opponent grabs her from behind and wraps an arm around her neck as his other hand grabs the top of her shimmering head. He is about to snap her neck when his thoughtful brown eyes meet mine.

Whereas before I had stared down the long wooden surface of the Table at Ichor, now I find myself staring into the eyes of the Baba Yaga, himself:

John Wick.

Seeing me, John hesitates for five seconds. Wanting to get to me quickly, however, he begins to resume his action only to be halted before its completion by a call from the Bowery King.

"LEAVE HER, JOHN!" the monarch commands in his booming voice. "I want to send her to the Elder...in several pieces."

Earl and Tick Tock each take an arm of Ichor, feeling more confident if the prisoner is in their hands and not a man whom has presumably not sworn fealty to their leader, no matter, what plot had been formed following his fall and rescue from off the Continental roof. Knowing now that I am a part of it all, an idiot whom has fallen for it and been used in the process, fearing I never meant anything to the assassin other than being a pawn, I suffer my own feeling of betrayal as John turns to look at me again. I cannot meet his gaze, however, in this room now littered with dead ex-members of the High Table. As Harrison Flowers stands and leaves the now unnecessary safety of the door, I fall down behind it, still hoping to use it as a shield;

This time _against_ John Wick.

I take Winston in my arms and hold him again, touching his bleeding face. He has lost consciousness again and I'm grateful we are in a hospital at least so he can be looked at. I don't look at John, though, when he comes and squats down by my side.

"He's hurt," I needlessly inform him.

"So are you," John says, his hand going to my face and gently caressing a cut above my eye from when the door had been knocked off of its hinges. A nut, a bolt, a piece of wood I don't know what caused it.  
I do know what has caused the wound in my heart, however.

"Not only there," I say, turning to make eye contact again. "In places you can't see too."

"Erin, I..." he begins before I interrupt him.

"Was it all planned out even from the day you walked into the shop?"

"Yes," he nods. "We needed someone who had never heard of the Table before. That way they would take you as the innocent you were. Earl had seen you before. You often gave him money on the street without realizing he was part of the Bowery King's network."

"Then you meet me, seduce me, make me think that you loved me and we can be together so that they would abduct me and bring me here," I wept.

"Only that first one," John Wick says and takes my head in his hands. "The plan only called for having you look after Helen's grave. Falling in love with you...I did that all by myself."

I'm crying harder now because in his eyes there is no trace of deception. There is only love and the regret over the fact that he has hurt me.

"Oh John," I whisper and fall towards him as we share an embrace filled with both love and forgiveness.

We are still holding one another as we hear a commotion in the outside corridor where Earl, Tick Tock and his Highness had been dragging Ichor. "JOHN!" we hear the Bowery King shout and we know that Ichor has escaped even before we rise and run to the corridor in unison, leaving Flowers to tend to Winston.

The two followers of the Bowery King and the monarch, himself, are lying on the ground, alive but shaken, while we see the door to the stairway clicking shut. John grabs my hand and we run to it together. While he makes to descend the flight of stairs, I see a flash of gold above us. "John, she's going to the roof!" I cry out and he back tracks. We climb the stairs all the way to the rooftop where we open the door to find Ichor running towards an air ambulance which is preparing to land.

Rushing ahead, I notice that John has stopped. He pulls me back towards him and into his arms where he holds me closely again. "No," he says. "You stay here."

"I don't want you to die," I say embracing him tightly.

"Don't worry. That will only happen if I lose you," John Wick says. He takes my head between his hands and then lowers his head to kiss me. It is a passionate gesture, one that is meant to give me his love and take my own from me for strength.

"I love you, Erin," he whispers gently before leaving me.

I'm still fighting to catch my breath as I watch from where I am standing the last member of the Table throwing the pilot and paramedics out from the chopper while my lover runs to catch up to her before she can take it back into the sky. While John is too late to prevent the lift off, he grabs on to the lower rail and pushes himself up into the helicopter itself. Ichor having turned the chopper around, I can no longer see John Wick and Ichor struggling in the cockpit as they fly above the East River.

A sound behind alerts me, at last, to the fact that I am not alone. The sound of the propeller slicing the air above them furiously and the engine of the helicopter is so loud that I failed to hear the sound of the Bowery King and his followers finally arriving on the rooftop of the Bellevue hospital. I see them now but it is in horror. The King has a large bazooka slung over his shoulder and he is aiming it right at the helicopter with his enemy and my beloved John inside of it.

"No loose ends John," he says with a gap toothed smile. "That's what we promised."

"NO!" I scream in anger as the Bowery King pulls the trigger.

My effort does some good, making the hit not go into the engine as intended which would have instantly blown the chopper to pieces. Still, it blows part of the tail and propeller of the aircraft off and I watch helplessly as the helicopter goes hurtling into the East River. Halfway towards the water I am devastated when the helicopter catches on fire, going down in a blaze of hungry, greedy flames.

"JOHN!" I scream and rush to the end of the hospital's rooftop.

I scream his name several more times as I watch the chopper being taken away from my vision as the river consumes it. The Bowery King comes to stand by my side. "I'll take this back," the man says and he peels something off from my back. I look at it briefly; resting in the palm of his hand is a computer chip; it is most probably a tracking device, I realize. The Tick Tock man must have planted it on me while he was pushing me towards Zero's sushi stand.

We wait in silence for a minute or two, the Bowery King and I, watching the water, my eyes desperately searching for a figure in a black suit to break through its equally black surface. The Bowery King soon loses his interest, gathering his two subjects and leaving me to stand alone searching in vain for a sign of life from a man I have already lost once while the sky turns from a star ridden ebony to a shade of overwhelming gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah...I know Ichor here is similar to Leuce from my other John Wick fic, Across the Fiery Desert and Under a Blood Red Moon, in the fact that they both dress monochromatically and have Greek mythology names based on their color schemes. But I couldn't help myself. It just worked out that way. By the way, I pictured her as Carrie Anne Moss. I read a story here once that said they wanted her to be the leader of the High Table...so to whomever that author was...Ichor was an ode to you too!
> 
> One chapter to go... :D <3


	12. Grave Favor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I ask Helen Wick for a favor.

Harrison, Winston and myself head back to the Continental after hours pass and John Wick does not emerge from the East River. We are told that Winston is fine enough to return to his hotel; actually, the Doctors at Bellevue advise that the Englishman stay overnight for observation but when he regains consciousnesses, Winston will not even consider it. "Takth meeth hoommme," he mumbles.

Harrison Flowers rolls his eyes and whispers, "He'd rather die than have people find out he was once a patient at Bellevue."

I want to laugh but just can't. Knowing the reason why, Flowers gives me a sympathetic pat on the back.

When we return to the New York Continental Hotel, Charon sees his wounded friend and rushes over towards him, babying him in a way so terribly polite that it is almost comical. When I see the concierge, he has a certain pitbull with him and I try not to cry as I kneel on the floor to wrap my arms around its neck while it pants blissfully unaware of the reason for its owner's absence. Seeing the canine, Winston tries to look at his worker with reproach, having presumably not had the time before his abduction to tell his friend that he has switched his own allegiance.

"I am sorry, Sir," Charon apologizes. "When Mr. Wick showed up and requested I look after him...well it is my job to take care of our customer's needs, is it not?"

Winston sighs at the professionalism of his friend.

"Where is Mr. Wick?" the concierge inquired in ignorance. "Shall I save room 818 for he and his lady friend or would they like separate rooms?"  
I swallowed painfully while continuing to pet Dog, my eyes flooding with tears.

"Noothh," Winston replies solemnly. "Jonathhhanth...hee.."

"He crashed into the East River inside of a helicopter while taking out the last member of the High Table," Harrison Flowers snaps in impatience, not willing to wait for the words to pass through the Englishman's broken lip.

"I see," Charon says with sorrow. "That is _most_ unfortunate."

Feeling my tears accumulating until they resemble the river my lover disappeared into, I quickly throw my arms around Dog's neck and sob into the not quite soft fur of the pitbull: the two miserable creatures John Wick has left behind.

* * *

After three days at the Continental, I ask Harrison to take me back to Jersey. I am tired of looking up in hope at every hitman or assassin that crosses my path in the hotel, hoping it will be John, only to find an unfamiliar and cold face glaring back at me with diffident, confused, curiosity. They clearly don't understand what a chubby, sore eyed, clumsy and clearly civillian woman is doing at the haven for the underworld's most violent men and women.

Especially not at a time like this.

The High Table as it has existed for centuries has been destroyed and a new one is being made to take its place. Every criminal organization on the face of the globe is vying to be one of the neo-twelve. Now family legacy, inheritance and tradition mean nothing; it is coming down to be a battle between who has the _most_ power, strength and means to acquire it. Even the Bowery King is rumored to have his eye on a seat there. Talk is stirring of an actual underworld style tounament but this one played on the whole of the world instead of just an appointed playing field. Whether this is for the better or worst, I have not been able to tell at my time spent at the Continental. All I know is that nobody alive dares to mention John Wick's name or bounty knowing he has taken down the entire previous twelve. Although they all believe it has cost him his own life, if John were to show his face on Continental ground, or any other place under the underworld's reign, he would be given a wide berth and absolution at last.

In fact, there are probably quite a few crime lords, whom now having a chance at gaining a chance of rulership, are more likely to shake his hand then to place another ludicrous price on his head.

"Are you sure you won't stay here with me, love," Winston has asked, lying in his bed in his suite. His lips still looked quite nasty but, ever the Brit, he has eventually forced himself to learn to manage it enough to enunciate perfectly. My mother had always said that the English didn't care what they said or did as long as they said and did it properly and Winston seems intent on proving her right.

"No," I tell him. "John Wick requested that I tend to Helen's grave and that is what I intend to do."

Both Winston and Charon look at me in sympathy but Winston still can't let me go so easily. "But that was a ruse, Erin," he argues. "Now Jonathan would like you to be with people that love you; those of us whom are grieving too."

"Don't worry, I will be. And I'll be back too," I reassure him. I give him and Charon both a hug before taking Dog with me and joining Harrison Flowers on the ride back to Jersey and Helen Wick's grave.

* * *

We're both staying with Jimmy now, Dog and I. Harrison, never having liked this little town has gone back to Chicago. I told him to catch a Cubs game for me and he promised he would. He asked me to go with him too despite knowing my intentions. I think that older men like me sometimes which always makes me smile. They see all of the plumpness on my body and they want to cuddle it and find some warmth and softness in the night. All I could think of, though, is when John Wick held me during our brief moments together so I had smiled genuinely at Harrison but told him I couldn't.

Besides the cemetery where Helen Wick is buried isn't in Chicago.

I think that's why Jimmy chooses to linger here now too. There's no reason for him to stay in this town anymore when the Table has been destroyed and his primary mission to keep an eye on the retired Baba Yaga is now over. But the policeman was in love with Helen, just as I am in love with John, so the thought of leaving her is painful to him. It doesn't matter that all which remains of her primarily is a corpse under six feet of earth and a headstone still baring the graffiti of her husband's bounty; he cannot stand to be too far away even from those few sad things of hers which still exist.

I have no resting place where I can mourn for my own lost love. If I did there would be water instead of dirt and the concrete of a dock instead of a tombstone. But I count myself better off than poor Jimmy because I have something he doesn't have because of this very fact.

I have _hope_.

"You going out to see her again?" the cop asks as I head out the door with Dog.

I turn to him and nod. "Are you coming with me?"

"No," he replies.

It's always the same answer. I know he goes to see her but it's never with me. I think it is probably because there is always a chance he might end up crying and it is better for him if I'm not there if that should happen. Men really aren't colder than women. They just keep all of their emotions buried about six feet under too; that way they won't be too wounded or ashamed if they are discovered. It's only the right woman allowed to play grave robber to unearth them so I give him a nod and then open the screen door and start walking to the cemetery with only Dog for company.

* * *

Most days, while I kneel in front of Helen Wick's grave, John Wick's canine companion weaves in and out of the aisles of the dead. He chases a squirrel every now and then and sometimes greets a visitor for some other dearly departed loved one that the cemetery shelters while they rest in peace. Today we are alone, however, Dog, Helen and myself.

"Please," I ask Helen Wick, finding words I have kept buried inside of my own heart, like it was a tomb for them, as well, escaping. I had feared setting them free incase they offended her. They are selfish after all and they involve the man that she loved very much. But today I am too tired and broken to keep them shackled and unspoken. "Helen...please let John come back to me. I know that he might be with you right now...and that you loved each other so much that maybe that would be for the best to leave him there...probably if he was with you, he'd never even think of me...but I can't keep living here thinking of him gone from it..."

I am crying again. Funny how tears actually cause pain themselves, I realize absently. The sting as they come and go and the rawness they leave in their wake. After my mom died, my eyes were rimmed with red, cracked skin that ached from the amount of salt which had touched it and from constantly wiping them away, only for new ones to immediately replace them. I do the latter now on the back of my sleeve.

"Knowing John's not here...nothing _feels_ the same. It must be what he felt after you had died. Colors are either too faded or too bright...sounds are too low or too loud and everything feels _wrong_ , like something is missing. I keep thinking that the world isn't as complete anymore...as whole. And yet everyone keeps moving forward, unaware that it isn't and maybe that hurts a little bit more than anything else: that the world didn't break without him. Only my heart."

Another wipe of my eyes with my sleeve and I notice that I'm also running just as much from my biggish nose. They go hand in hand even if they leave that part out of romance films and novels; tears and snot are about as close of companions as there can be but while one will earn you pity the other will usually only get you a look of embarrassment or disgust.

"So, please, Helen...if you can, give John Wick back to me."

There is only silence; that was all I expected anyway. You don't beg another woman for the chance to spend the life she never got to live with the husband she adored and expect her to grant you that one very precious to you favor. That was why I never asked God for that particular blessing: it seemed more fair, more _right_ , to ask Helen Wick first.

I lower my head and weep with a painful serenity, resembling one of the mournful stone angels frequenting the cemetery as I try to bravely accept the fact that she has denied my request and I must face the rest of my life without John.

It is only when I hear Dog barking, not a common sound for he is usually a quiet animal, do I raise my head. The sound of it not only announces someone's approach but it is a noise which sounds _right_ and the way it _should_ finally sound after days where everything that has reached my ears has been imperfect. Dog is running. He resembles a long gray cannonball bounding between the unmoving graves. But, in that moment, even his plain shade of gray seems to come alive with unspeakable beauty and everything similarly becomes a color which neither hurts my tear blurred vision or that leaves it desiring something more.

Dog runs towards the visitor whom is walking steadily and with serene purpose towards both the enthusiastic canine and myself. The man is limping and appears to be in pain but he keeps walking nonetheless.

He does not need to overstrain himself however;

He will not need to walk the whole way.

I am on my feet and instantly running towards the man in the black suit. Although Dog beats me there, after giving his furry friends a few pets, John Wick steps by him so I can run into his arms and he can hold me tightly back. My snot and my tears are covering his suit which smells strongly of the East River but neither of us care. He accepts the discharge from my nose as if it is an oinment and I accept his strong smell as if it is the finest perfume I have ever inhaled. I hear other sounds joining the sound of Dog barking now in the previously lonely cemetery, the sound of my cries of joy as I thank Helen Wick and God for this special favor and John Wick telling me that he loves me and always will for doing one for him when he asked it so many months before. And when we are both are tired of speaking and our lips find each other and form a kiss, no longer is anything missing but instead it feels perfectly _right_ and wonderfully _whole_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a time when I was afraid I'd never finish this story. It was meant to be a one shot; just John asking me to care for Helen's grave. Then it turned in to a three parter inside of my head. But I was floundering helplessly. It was boring. All it was ever meant to be was me taking care of Helen's grave. But while that worked as a one chapter deal, dragging it out...well it was painful. Maybe James Joyce could have pulled it off but not me. So then I winged it and it turned out okay for writing it by the seat of my pants hopefully. But this ending...this was how I always pictured it ending: me asking Helen for the chance at a life with John and him coming back to me and our reunion in the graveyard.
> 
> Thinking of Heaven...I write a *lot* of sex scenes in these stories, Keanu, but you know what Heaven would be like for me? Just a Saturday or Sunday afternoon spent in your garage (which I have absolutely no idea what it looks like :/ ) watching you fixing around with your motorcycle. The garage door is open; it's a sunny day, hot but with a nice cool breeze and I'm sitting up there on a table, watching quietly as you work on your bike. Maybe the radio's on and we're listening to some tunes, if we can agree on a radio station that is. An Oldies one? Does that work for you? Sam Cooke or Bobby Darrin...Buddy Holly or Del Shannon. We don't say much at the start but just enjoy each other being there. But then you gradually start telling me about the different parts of a motorcycle and how it all works. And I listen to it all because I like finding out how things work and I like the sound of your voice. And since this is all in Heaven, or God letting me spend a few hours back here on Earth after my time is over, my OCD brain will be fixed and I won't have to feel like I always do or say the wrong thing and I just hope and pray you won't mind me being there for just a few hours because I know how much you value your privacy. Speaking of favors too...that's the one I'll ask God for: that one afternoon with you.


End file.
